


The Fourth Moon

by Dumpster_Princess



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti)
Genre: Adorable Georgie Denbrough, Alternate Universe - Magic, Beverly Marsh & Richie Tozier Are Best Friends, Child Abandonment, Eddie Kaspbrak is a Little Shit, Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier-centric, Established Ben Hanscom/Beverly Marsh, Gay Disaster Eddie Kaspbrak, Gay Disaster Richie Tozier, Gay Eddie Kaspbrak, Gay Richie Tozier, Magic Losers, Magic Losers Club, Mike Hanlon Deserves Love, Pennywise is also here, Reddie, Richie Tozier is a Little Shit, Wandless Magic, bowers gang is here, oopsies, sorry - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-18
Updated: 2021-02-04
Packaged: 2021-03-07 17:55:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 28,543
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26521762
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dumpster_Princess/pseuds/Dumpster_Princess
Summary: “Where am I?”
Relationships: Ben Hanscom/Beverly Marsh, Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Kudos: 19





	1. Bugs, Bees, Hollow Trees, Let Me Steal Your Fucking Knees

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so I kinda suck at writing... oopsies! Anyways, I think the writing in this story will gradually get better as it goes on. Hope you like it! :)
> 
> TRIGGER WARNINGS WILL BE AT THE TOP OF EVERY CHAPTER.

**Trigger Warning: Mention and Description of Blood**

As Richie sat on his bed, he began to feel antsy. Something felt odd within him, telling him to do something, though he wasn't sure what to do. It was just another boring summer day in his city, though it was about the size of a town, it just had lots of big, fancy office buildings everywhere.

His parents were both at work right now and he didn't have any pets to play with or talk to. As if they could understand what he would say anyways -- well, maybe they would understand? -- and he didn't have any friends either, so... he wasn't really given much to work with here.

He sat up and walked across his room to look out one of his windows. He leaned against the sill of it and stared out into the rest of the small city. As soon as his eye caught on the tree standing at the edge of his front yard, something told him he knew where he needed to go now.

He slipped out of his pajamas that he was still wearing, though it was well past an "acceptable" time to still be laying around in them. He slipped on a pair of navy blue jeans with gaping holes in the knees from the time he went out biking and flew off his bike after running right into the high curb, trying to swerve himself away from a car that seemingly came out of nowhere.

_He didn't die -- obviously -- but he scraped his knees and hands pretty good. As he stood back up and made his way back over to his bike, he could feel his knees sting. He looked down to see gaping holes in both knees of the jeans, one bigger than the other, and a thick red substance drooling its way down his legs. He picked up his bike, hopping back on and heading back home to slap some bandaids on them and clean the rest of the blood away. His hands stung as he gripped the handles and his knees burned as he pedaled his way home. He paid no mind to it, simply continuing on and dropping his bike in the front yard once he reached his destination. He walked straight through the door and headed to the bathroom, pulling out the box of large bandaids from the medicine cabinet and placing them over the disgusting mix of red, brown, and black that now covered his knees. He wiped up the rest of the blood after he had changed out of his pants and threw on some shorts instead. He tossed the jeans in the dirty clothes hamper and when he saw them next, they had been washed and dried, which had affectively ripped the holes open even more._

_He decided to keep the jeans, and apparently his body decided to keep the scars on his knees._

He shoved a bright yellow and white striped shirt on over his head and threw a thin, also ripped jean jacket on over. The jacket had just gotten ripped purely by Richie's clumsiness. Usually his clothing was obnoxious and loud, always clashing with different colors and patterns, and from afar, this would look like an ordinary outfit, mind the eye burning yellow that was on his shirt.

But if you looked closer, you would notice that the front of the jacket was covered in all kinds of random pins, the back covered in dozens of patches, all different shapes and sizes, themes, colors, scattered unevenly and in random directions. There was one very large patch right in the middle of his back, though. It was big block letters saying "LOSER" in white, and a red "V" covering the s in a different font that made it look scribbled over. It may not have been as horrifyingly ugly as most of his outfits, but he couldn't be bothered to care. He just needed to go to where the voice at the back of his head was telling him to. He slipped on a pair of plain black Vans slides and grabbed his phone before heading out.

His outfit may not have been as "I hate myself" ugly as usual, but he did have a pair of obnoxious banana socks on. He was still Richie-fucking-Tozier, after all!

When he got outside, he just walked straight through the neighborhood. Usually, he would take his bike everywhere, but something in him was just dragging him, no time to stop and do anything else. The voice seemed to be repeating the same thing to him again and again, " _Go to the woods... go to the woods... go to the woods..."._

Realistically, he knew that nobody was talking to him and it was his own strange urge to get there, but he couldn't figure out why. Why the hell did he want to go to the woods? Not to mention that he apparently wanted it so much so, that he was literally telling himself to go there and he wouldn't let himself stop until he was there.

Or was it him? No, no, it _was_ him. It _had_ to be him. There was no other explanation. Plus, the human mind did strange things all the time, right? This could just be one of those weird things. Yeah, that was it, it just his brain being weird and his body had no other choice but to follow.

Richie hadn't noticed how long it had been until he had gotten there. He finally snapped out of it when he was standing at the entrance of the woods, a small, bumpy dirt trail leading straight from the sidewalk and twisting its way into the deep of trees and brush.

He thought to himself for a moment, trying to recall how long it had been since he left his house. It didn't feel that long, but the woods were all the way on the other side of the city from his house... he was waling the entire time, right? Had he started running without realizing it or something? Did his brain just slow down as his feet carried him to his destination and he had actually been walking longer than it felt?

He had no grasp on how much time had passed or what time it was now, but he didn't have much more time to think about it before the voice was back inside his head, crouched right in the back, but loud to the point that all the rest of his brain could hear was, " _Go inside... go inside... go inside."_

Without even thinking about it, he took a few steps on the trail and was surrounded by pure nature. The voice in is head disappeared, and he was finally left to think for himself, have his own thoughts willingly. He continued walking down the trail, eventually losing himself in the beauty of his surroundings.

He was lost to a nothingness that surrounded him and he felt at peace. Usually his mind was running a mile a minute, but right now, it seemed as though his brain had slowed itself down in order to let him enjoy this moment.

He again hadn't realized how long it had been, but at some point, he had lifted his head towards the sky and closed his eyes, at let himself enjoy the feeling of the sun peeking through the trees and landing on his face. He bright red would flash behind his eyelids, soon disappearing into the black of the tree's shade, and then back to red.

At some point, he had gotten quite far into the woods when he felt an something eerie surround him. He suddenly stopped in his tracks, looking around himself to see if he could find anyone or anything. The feeling squeezed at his heart and yanked his stomach downwards, making him feel almost sick. He stood there for a moment longer, looking all around before he heard something ruffle in the bushes to his right.

He whipped his head so fast he could have swore he got whiplash from it. He watched as something dark green flashed and he heard another ruffle. Soon after, a person emerged from the bushes and began walking along the path ahead of Richie. They were turned away, so Richie couldn't see their face, but he felt less worried now. The person was around the same height as him, though Richie was very tall for his age, and they wore some sort of... cloak? It wasn't very long, their legs still visible, but they had the hood pulled over their head. Their entire body was covered, head to toe, including their hands.

He decided to follow the mystery stranger, just to see where they were going. He walked along behind them, not realized how loud he was being until the person stilled, waiting a moment before turning around. Luckily, Richie had realized his mistake and hopped behind a tree before the person could turn around.

It was only then, after the person had turned back around and continued walking that Richie realized how cliché the whole situation was. He almost laughed about it, but thought better of it before any noise could escape his mouth. He carried on following the person, making sure to keep his footsteps quiet, and his breathing even quieter.

He kept his distance, but continued to take careful steps, trying to avoid snapping any twigs or kicking up any rocks. Soon enough, there was a fork in the trail. A part of it branched off to the left, while the other part of branched off to the right. Laying where the trail would be if it had continued straight, was an extremely wide, tall tree.

The person, instead of continuing on the trail to the left or the right, heading straight for the huge tree. When they had reached the tree, they walked around it, their feet carrying them all the way to the other side of the tree.

Richie stood there, waiting a few moments to see if the person would come back out, if he had been caught and this was their way of telling him they knew he was there. Nothing happened. Eventually, curiosity got the best of Richie and he too walked around to the other end of the tree. He wasn't sure what he was expecting when he got to the other side, but he sure as hell wasn't expecting what he found.

On the other side of the tree, there was a large hollow in the base of it, which would usually be normal and nothing surprising about it (other than the fact that it would be large enough to fit inside of) but it was far from that. Inside of the hollow was a fascinating bright yellow color. It looked iridescent and it swirled around inside of itself. It looked like something that he would read about in a children's story book or see in some sort of fantasy movie.

He found no trace of the person who had walked behind the tree before and thought it might have been a prank for a second, no way this was real! After a bit of consideration, he stared into the swirling yellow glow, mentally preparing himself for what he was about to do. He new it was probably stupid, but could you blame him? He was already confused beyond belief.

He stuck a finger out and slowly inched it towards the light, looking away when it was less than an inch away. He continued to push his finger forward, not feeling anything at all. When he gained up the courage to look back at his finger, he saw that his entire hand was submerged in the strange light.

It didn't feel like much of anything, but now that he thought about it, there was a bit of a strange airy feeling as it swirled around his wrist, a bit of a tingly feeling buzzing up his arm. He pulled his hand back out and found nothing to be the matter with it when he inspected it. It didn't look or feel any different than it had before.

He paced for a minute, debating if he should do this or not before finally taking a leap of faith. He scrunched his eyes shut, holding his breath and plugging his nose as he stepped into the strange light. As he entered, he felt a buzzing effect shoot straight through his core, giving the same tingly vibrations as it did before, but now it covered his entire being, moving all the way through into his bones.

When nothing else seemed to happen, he slowly opened his eyes one after the other. His mouth gaped open at the sight, the breath being pulled from his lungs as his eyes grew wide.

"Where am I?"

_**To be continued...** _


	2. He Protecc, He Get Attacc, It’s Not His Fault He A Snacc

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Richie meets a few new people...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m really sorry that all of my chapter titles are weird, I just think of them and then use them lol. If you wanna know when I post next or wanna ask any questions in the future, you can follow me on Instagram @ Dumpster._.Princess :)
> 
> Trigger warnings will be at the top of every chapter! Hope you enjoy!

**Trigger Warning: Descriptions of severe intestinal injury (result of being attacked)**

When the boy took in his surroundings, he couldn't believe his eyes. It looked like something out of some sort of fairytale book his mom would read to him as a child as he went to sleep, or a fantasy movie hey would see billboards for when it finally released in theaters.

He was still in the woods, but now the greenery was so open and healthy looking that it looked almost unnatural. Everything was the perfect green color, but that wasn't the only change. Far from it, actually. Floating all around in the air were small, glowing balls of light. They looked like they were made out of the same iridescent material as the yellow glow he had walked through mere minutes ago. Material? Was that the right word for what it was? Richie didn't know, and frankly, he didn't care either. He was too entranced by this new world.

They sat in the same place, merely hovering up and down slightly as they sat midair. The color had swirled around in the same way too. When he finally moved his focus from the glowing orbs enough to think about something else for a second, he noticed that there was a new dirt path continuing forward. He only had a quick second to think about how the person who had been on the trail on the other side of the tree wasn't there anymore before he was broken out of his trance by the beautiful world.

Out of this perreferal, he noticed something large slowly stalking towards him. When hey whipped his head around to look at the creature, he let out the loudest scream he had ever heard come from someone before, though he couldn't focused on it at the moment, considering he was terrified for his life.

The creature looked kind of like a raptor that they would animate in a movie or show, but it was covered in feathers like a chicken's. The feathers were a mix or yellow, red, and blue, the creature now running towards him on it's hind legs, though it's arms were longer than any of the creatures from a dinosaur movie that its form resembled. Richie screamed again as he ran the other way, coming up short in less than a few seconds as he found himself cornered by a large tree.

As the creature continued to run towards him, he pressed his body as far against the tree as physically possible, as if he was trying to blend in and morph with the tree. The creature stopped in front of him once it had reached his dead end. Richie scrunched his eyes closed, his entire body shaking with fear, hoping it would somehow help until he remembered, none of this could possibly be real!

There was no way. Things like this didn't exist, none of it made sense. Trees with portals that lead to another dimension don't exist, levitating glowing orbs don't exist, the creature in front of him didn';t exist — even if it did, it was probably extinct — none of this was real! It was all just a weird dream turned to a nightmare, just something his brain made up. The creature would attack him and he would be fine, because by that time, he would wake up! He would be in his bed with messy hair, shaking and sweating from head to toe as his heaving breathing wracked his body, then he would get up and take a shower too wash off the sweat and help bring himself back to his own reality. Everything was fine.

As these thoughts ran through his brain — in the short span of less than a minute — he opened his eyes again, realizing that he could do whatever he wanted and still be fine, it was just a dream after all.

He looked back up at the creature snarling at him, showing him its gnarly sharp teeth, slobber dripping from its teeth to splatter on the ground below. Richie sat for another moment to take in the sight of the creature before he moved away from his place against the tree trunk, puffing out his chest and trying to make himself look bigger.

The creature gave a questioning look to the boy as it closed its mouth and tilted its head to the side like a dog. As soon as Richie had opened his mouth to yell, trying to show dominance to the strange creature above him, the creature whipped its arm, claws slashing right through Richie's skin and into his stomach.

Richie screeched in pain, now shouting his thoughts out loud as if it would make any difference, "Not a dream! Not a dream! _Not a dream!_ " He screeched as the creature snarled again. He fell to the ground, accepting fate in a mere moment, before he heard the creature screech itself.

It sounded as if it were in fear and pain, not something of pride or intimidation. He heard the large footsteps of the creature pound against the forest floor, growing quieter and quieter as the animal ran back in to the brush it had emerged from. Now holding his torn stomach in pain, Richie looked up as he heard the creature scamper away, trying to find what had caused its freight. As he turned his head slightly, he saw the figure of a person about his height with dark skin and a very wide shoulders. As they turned to look at him, he took in. The persons face and realized that they probably couldn't be much older than him; unless, of course, they had a case of 'Baby Face' ; which was also plausible.

The boy smiled at Richie, showing him his perfect, pearly white teeth. "Are you okay?" He asked kindly, bending down on one knee next to Richie. His voice was deep and soft, it was easy to hear the emotion in his voice. Richie nodded his head at first, awed by the person in front of him, there was something about him that was different, but Richie couldn't exactly place his finger on what it was. Then when he snapped back to reality he looked down at his hand covering his stomach.

"Actually..." Richie dragged the word out a bit, his voice slightly shaking as he felt warm liquid pushing against the palm of his hand. As the other boys' gazed dropped down to the same spot as Richie's, the boy moved his hand eve so slightly, showing only part of the gashing holes in his stomach.

The boy gasped at the sight, his own hand shooting out to place itself on top of Richie's and cover the wound again. "Keep pressure on that." He said firmly, though there was not threatening tone in his voice. Richie nodded his head in understanding and applied more pressure to his wounds, though it hurt like a bitch, which he had said as much to the other.

"It's better than you dying." The boy smiled again, showing Richie that it was only a joke. His smile slowly faded into a questioning look as he stared at Richie, "What were you doing?" He questioned, "Usually, you would have been able to easily shoo the creature off, right? How did you let it attack you?" It was when he spoke that last question that he looked at where Richie's ears hid under his long, dark, mop of curls. He slowly moved his hand towards Richie's face, as if to ask if it was okay to be so close to his face, to which Richie didn't move, and he took it as a yes.

He tucked the tips of his fingers into his curls and gently tucked them behind his ear, gasping again when he saw his ears. "A human?" The boy practically shouted, mouth gaping at the sight.

"What do you... mean..." The sentence slowly died in Richie's throat as he looked at the other boy's ears, noticing that instead of rounded, they were pointed at the tips. "What?" Richie asked (mostly to himself) in disbelief. "Your ears. They-" Richie was cut off mid-sentence by the boy in front of him.

"They're pointy?" The boy asked, a smile back on his lips. Richie nodded, still in a state of shock. The boy stuck his hand out towards Richie, "I'm Mike, Mike Hanlon." His smile now shifting to a grin.

Richie reached his hand out and interlocked it with the boy's — Mike's! — hand, "Richie. Uh, Tozier. Richie Tozier." Richie told the boy, shaking his hand.

"Nice to meet you, _human_." Mike said, laying down a thick emphasis on the last word. They let go of each other's hands and that's when Richie finally snapped out of it, looking down at his hand again.

He looked back up to Mike, saying, "Look, this is great and all, but I think I'm dying..." Richie watched as Mike's expression grew with the realization that Richie still needed to be aided.

"Right, right, right," Mike rushed out, "Suppose you can't stand up?" He asked, to which Richie shook his head, giving a small " _I don't think I could...'_. "Do you trust me?" Mike had now asked.

"Uhh..." Richie paused, thinking on it for a moment, "We just met, but you did save my life so-" Richie, once again, didn't get to finish before Mike had cut him off.

"Great! I just need you to hang on tight and try not to freak out. Okay?" Mike began to lift Richie off the ground, seemingly effortlessly, holding him bridal style. "Brace yourself," Was the last thing Mike said before they were off.

He jumped straight from the ground and onto a branch of the tree that Richie had been sitting up against since his encounter with the murderous creature. Mike made quick work of jumping from branch to branch, from tree to tree. He held a swiftness and grace that kept them from falling, but also carried them to their destination in no time. He seemed to do this with ease, like it was the most natural thing for him to ever do.

"Is this how you get around, or something?" Richie had laughed, though only half joking when he had asked the question.

"Yes, actually!" Mike had responded, "Well, when I need to somewhere far fast, anyways. My friends and I usually just walk everywhere." He smiled when he mentioned his friends.

"You guys don't have any methods of transportation?" Richie asked, curious to know if they had anything similar to busses, cars, or even bicycles.

"Uh, yeah." Mike replied snarkily, "Our feet."

Richie couldn't help the snort that came from his mouth at that response. Each time he had laughed, they pain from his stomach made him wince, but he tried not to let the pain he was in show, just continuing to laugh for as long as it chose to last, and then moving on.

Soon enough, Mike hopped from a tree branch and back down to the ground. He had only walked a few feet before he started walking down a small set of stairs, the dirt floor opening its way more and more to let the two boys inside. Richie was intrigued by the way the ground caved around them in a specific way, turning itself into stairs. When he had reached the bottom of the stairs, Richie looked at the small room that surrounded them.

It had complete dirt walls, wooden beams for structural support, and all different kinds of things shoved into the space. It may have been small, but it was still large enough for several people to spend time in. Richie figured this was where Mike and his friends hung out, or maybe this is where Mike lived? He wasn't sure, but his eyes caught on something a bit peculiar.

In one corner of the room, sat a girl with short, fire red hair. She had a pair of striking blue eyes like Richie's own, except a bit colder looking. Not that the girl's personality seemed cold, oh no. When she saw Richie her expression immeadiately turned happy and cheery, but the blue of her eyes still remained cold looking, reminding him of the ice freezing over a body of water when winter came.

_**To be continued...** _


	3. Some New Faces

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Richie meets a few new people. Could they possibly be friends? Or is he just too hopeful..?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :0 WOW! D.P. KNOWS HOW TO NAME CHAPTERS THINGS THAT AREN’T STUPID? :0  
> IT’S A MIRACLE!
> 
> Anyways, I hope you all enjoy chapter three :)
> 
> Trigger Warnings Will Be At the Top of Every Chapter!

"Oh my goodness!" She clapped and made her way over to the two boys as Mike dragged Richie further into the room, "Who is this?" She grinned even wider when she was able to get a better glimpse of Richie's face.

"This is Richie," Mike smiled at her as he laced Richie down in what Richie assumed was a hammock near the middle of the room. "He's a human." Mike pushed some of Richie's curls back to show his normal, rounded ear.

The girl gaped at Richie like he was the greatest thing she had ever seen. "A human?" She had exclaimed with excitement, "Ben! Ben! Come look, you have to see this!" She waved somebody else over.

Richie hadn't even realized the other boy — Ben? — was there until he carefully made his way over to Richie. He seemed a bit skeptical, but suddenly relaxed a bit when Richie gave him a soft smile and waved with his unoccupied hand. The boy gave a small wave in return, looking up at Mike and the girl that was there.

Richie distantly heard the boy asking Mike something, but he couldn't focus on it too much as the girl's face was suddenly right in his own. Richie leaned back as much as he could, trying to get some space between the two of them. "Oh, wow, wow, wow," The girl mused to herself as she took in the appearance of the human in front of her. She looked over his face one last time before a hurricane of questions came spilling out of her mouth a mile a minute, her grin growing each second that passed, "What's it like being a human? Does the shape of your ears ever make you insecure? Do you have any special abilities? What's your anatomy like? What do you say when referring to certain periods of time? Why are your homes always shoved wherever and shaped weird? What are those big, metal, moving things that you always use? What are those things on your face? Why are your eyes so big? Oh my goodness, your hair looks so fluffy and soft, can I touch it? How do humans clean their bodies? Do you ever wish that-"

"Bev, maybe you should start with one question at a time?" Mike suggested, placing a hand on her shoulder and giving her a kind smile.

"Oh, right! Where are my manners?" She face-palmed, turning back to Richie and sticking her hand out, "I'm Beverly Marsh. Call me Bev," She grinned.

Richie took her hand in his, shaking it as he said, "Richie Tozier." When they let go, he smiled up at her, asking, "Got any questions?" He chuckled lightly as her eyes lit up.

"Yes! I do!" She giggled while nodding her head at the speed of light.

"Bev," Mike spoke up again, "Could questions wait? I need you and Ben to go get the others. Our friend here had a bit of an... accident, and he needs our help."

"Oh no, what happened?" She asked, worried for the human.

"It doesn't matter right now, Ben can tell you on the way to get the others." Mike looked towards the other boy, as if to get confirmation, to which Ben smiled and nodded.

Beverly grabbed Ben's hand and rushed out of the room, the ground falling down and forming into a small staircase again. The two of them ran up it and were gone before Richie could really digest what was happening. "Help should be here soon, Richie." Mike smiled at the boy

~~~

Bev and Ben were back only a few minutes later, with three other kids that looked to be around Richie's age. One of them, with Auburn hair had walked up to inspect Richie, while the other two kept their distance and stayed behind. Richie couldn't get a very good glimpse at the other two, so he decided to pay attention to the four others that were surrounding him and inspecting him.

"What's wrong with him?" The boy with Auburn hair asked, after inspecting Richie.

"That's a bit judgmental, don't you think?" Richie scoffed and rolled his eyes at the words that emerged from the boy's mouth.

"I didn't mean that. I was asking why you're hurt," The boy chuckled slightly, the response making Richie feel a little stupid for jumping to conclusions. Who could blame him, though? He's used to getting backlash from people around him just for merely existing.

"He got attacked," Mike answered before Richie could say anything. "He was injured and it looks pretty bad..." Just to support what Mike was saying, Richie removed his hand from his stomach and wincing in pain, the sight making the other four gasp and cringe.

"Eddie, Stan, we need you over here!" Ben had called out to the two at the back.

"Uhh, no thanks. We decided we're just gonna stay back here." Richie hears a voice say bluntly.

"Oh my gosh, you guys! He's a dying here and we need your help!" Mike exclaimed, a bit frustrated with the other two.

"Good, let him die." Another voice came from the two at the back. At that response, everyone whipped their heads towards the person who had said it, all of them exclaiming at the same time:

" _Eddie_!" At this point, Richie started to get dizzier than before. He wasn't sure when the room had started spinning before, but it's was even worse now.

' _Usually_ ,' Richie thought to himself ' _someone wouldn't have died by now. Wait, has it been long enough for that? How much time has passed?'_ Realistically, he knew it couldn't have been that long, but the fog over his brain wouldn't allow for realistic thinking at the moment.

The next thing he knew, someone was snapping their fingers at his face, trying to get him to stay conscious enough for his brain to not shut down. It snapped him out of it for a second, giving him enough time to find something to focus on, trying to keep himself awake. He focused on the sound of their voices as they conversed back and forth with each other.

At some point, the two at the back had come over,but Richie's vision began to fill with the same blurry fog as the rest of his senses. Someone shrieked in horror, Richie being able to register the sound, but not conscious enough to figure out who it came from.

"A _human_? And you stuck it in _my_ hammock?" Eddie shrieked upon seeing the being.

"Yes, a human, Eddie. Now, we need you to heal him so he doesn't fucking die!" Bev said with a newfound urgency in her tone of voice, completely ignoring the comment about the hammock.

"Nuh-uh! No way! I am _not_ helping a human! Fuck that noise!" Eddie crossed his arms over his chest, glaring daggers at the others.

"Eddie, please." Mike practically begged, praying that his friend would save their new human friend.

"Why can't you guys do it if it's so important to you?" The boy huffed, " He's a human, for fucks sake! Who's to say he won't kill and torture us all after he gets his health and strength back?" Eddie continued his argument with the others.

"We can't do it because it needs to be done as fast as possible and you're better at healing than the rest of us." Ben explained, "Besides, Eddie. Do you _really_ think that face has any evil hidden behind it?" Ben pointed to Richie's dopey face as he slipped out and back into consciousness again and again.

"Yes. Yes I do." Eddie continued to glare.

"Yeah... it's been awhile since I've seen any humans, but I don't remember them being _this_ ugly..." Stan contributes to the conversation.

The entire conversation has become a large cluster of fuzzy, humming voices, all merging together. He can't depict any certain words or voices from the mess, he can only hear the sound of muffled hum after muffled hum. Eventually, he's brought back to consciousness out of nowhere. He's not completely sure what happened, but when he asks, he finds that they had asked Eddie to help heal him, but when the boy refused, they resorted to Beverly, seeing as he had slipping out of consciousness and they didn't wanna wait too long.

He still doesn't know who Eddie is or what he looks like, but he does notice someone new staring at him after he came to again. They had curly blonde hair that was far from Richie's unruly ravenette curls. The person doesn't introduce themselves, doesn't say anything but, "Mind explaining how he got here exactly?" The boy gives a suspicious stare to all of his friends, searching for an answer to his question.

"Well," Mike begins, pausing for a quick second, before continuing, "I didn't exactly ask him." Mike shrugged.

"So, we have a human parasite and you don't even know how it got here?" The boy asked, apparent anger filling his voice.

"He's not a parasite!" Bev shouted back, "Just because he isn't like you, or me, or any of us, doesn't make him bad."

"Oh god..." He mumbled to himself, completely ignoring Beverly, "There could be more. How many more are there?" He gave a worried look to the rest of the group.

"Hold on, hold on. The boy with Auburn hair spoke again, "We don't even know how he got here. Let's ask one question at a time, starting with that. Richie?" He turned to look at the boy in the hammock now, "How did you get here?"

"I was taking a walk in the woods when someone appeared on the trail..." He started slowly, trying his best to remember everything, "They were wearing a cloak, which was odd... so I followed them, and walked into a glowing tree..." He finished off, trying to think if he was missing anything.

"He followed you through the portal?" Someone at the back shrieked, "Mike, you were supposed to make sure nobody followed you!" The voice said angrily.

"Was there anyone else with you?" Mike asked, ignoring the person from the back.

"No." Richie replied simply, shaking his head. The others all sighed a breath of relief at the fact no other humans were there.

"Well, that checks one thing off the list." Mike smiled at him. "Oh, yeah! This is Bill," Mike pointed to the boy with auburn hair, "And this is Stan." He now pointed to the boy with curly blonde hair. They wave at him in unison before Mike continues, "And that there in the back is Eddie."

Richie catches as much of a glimpse of Eddie as he can before Eddie is turning away from him to fo something else. "Nice to meet you all." He smiles as he looks back to the group. "I should probably get back home now, though. I don't want to be a bother for you guys," Richie's smile turned a bit sad, but his face then contorting to confusion as he sees the expression on everyone else's face. "What is it..?" He asks, a bit worriedly he must admit.

"Eddie?" Bev calls as she makes her way over to the boy. Richie watches them discuss something, can't hear what they're saying though. They begin to argue a bit before they finally come to an agreement or conclusion of some sort, and Eddie is off, making his way out of the room and back to overground.

Minutes seem to pass by slowly now, they sit in an odd silence, everyone seemingly knows what's going on except for Richie, the anxiety eats him from the inside as he fidgets with his hands, biting on his nails and bouncing his legs as they all wait for Eddie to reappear.

Once the other boy finally comes back, he shakes his head, loudly saying, "The fucking portal closed and now we have a human stuck with us for an entire Time Glips! This is not supposed to be happening right now. This is some dangerous shit and you fucking fucks decided to-" Eddie started ranting until Richie disputed his flow of complaints, insults, and rude names.

"Wait... what do you mean ' _the portal closed_ '? You can just reopen it, right?" Richie asked, now more worried than ever.

"Well... not exactly..." Ben scratched the back of his neck.

"What do you mean?" Richie asked, his worries seeping through his brain and out his mouth, mixed together with his words to show everybody just how he was feeling.

"It means that until we can find a way to get you out of here, you're fucking stuck here, fuckface," Eddie bit out harshly.

" _WHAT_?"

**_To be continued..._ **


	4. Sekrons, Mekrons and Lekrons

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Richie freaks out and learns a bit more about their world.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everyone! Just wanted to let you know that you can follow me on Instagram @ dumpster._.princess to find out when I’ve added a new chapter or dm me to talk and/or ask me any questions you have! :)
> 
> I hope you enjoy chapter four!

"I can't be _stuck here!_ " Richie exclaimed, now jumping up and out of the hammock to nervously run his hands through his hair over and over again as he paced back and forth. "I have to get back home! I can't just-" Richie paused in the middle of his sentence as a horrifying thought crossed his mind, his pacing stopped and he turned to face the group where they were still gathered around the hammock, "Please tell me that this is one of those things in a movie where the portal has closed permanently and there's no way I can get back home..." Richie asked, the tears beginning to fill his eyes very obvious.

Bill shook his head, saying, "No, of course not. I'm not sure what a 'movie' is, but the portal isn't closed forever." He finger quoted as he spoke the foreign word.

"Yes," Beverly added, "the portal reopens annually, though it only lasts for so long until it closes again, and we don't know of any way to open it up before it reopens on its own," she gave a sympathetic look to Richie.

"Wait, wait, wait... you said the portal opens 'annually', as in once a year?" Richie looked at them incredulously, he was far past losing his cool already and he was nowhere close to regaining it anytime soon, as far as he could see anyways. The pointy eared people all looked at each other in question, as if what he was saying had made no sense to them.

"What is a 'year'?" Ben asked, all of them giving the same curious look, as if to inform Richie that they all wanted to know what he was talking about.

"Y'know, a year! Like... 365 days, a full rotation of the earth around the sun! A- oh..." His words died in his throat as he realized what he had said, "Right... we're not on earth anymore, are we?" The others all looked around at each other curiously once again, telling Richie all he needed to know about the answer to his question. "We _are_ on a planet, right..?" Richie asks now.

"Well, of course." Stan said, nodding his head.

"Okay, well, does your planet revolve around anything? Like... a big star?" Richie asked now, to which the others all nodded in reply, "Where I come from, when my planet makes a full rotation of our star, it's called a year. Once the planet reaches that point again to finish the circular rotation, a new year begins and it starts all over again." Richie explained, creating a ball shape with his hands here and there or sticking a finger into the air and swirling it in a circular motion as he explained to them.

"Ohhh!" Bev grinned, finally understanding, "You mean a Time Glips!" The others responded to Beverly's conclusion with 'oh's of realization.

"I mean, yeah, if that's what it's called here." Richie shrugged before remembering the real matter at hand, "Wait! I can't be stuck here for a whole year- or ' _Time Glips_ ' or whatever the fuck you call it! I have a life back at home to get to. People are going to think I've gone missing or been kidnapped and murdered or- or-" Richie was losing it again...

"Okay, you need to relax a little bit." Mike stepped in, walking closer to Richie. "Time moves much slower for you than it does us. By the time we complete a full Time Glips and the portal opens back up, only 1/12 of the time you spent here will have passed in the mortal realm."

"Wait- how... how is that even possible?" Richie asked, not waiting for an answer before starting back up again, "I'll still be missing for a whole month in time back at home! Even though it's only been a month there, a year will have passed for me. I'll be older than I should be and I-" Richie stopped mid sentence, once again, to look Mike square in the eye wile asking, "Did you say mortal realm?" He asked, adding emphasis to the last two words. "Are you- are you guys immortal? Am I not only stuck in another dimension, with horrifying creatures and weird time zones, but I'm also stuck with people who are immortal?"

Nobody knew what to say, most of them just watching as the human had a meltdown right in front of them, while Eddie just rolled his eye, giving an unamused expression to his _very_ unwelcome guest. "This... _this_ ," He gestured to everything around him, " _this_ isn't right! This shouldn't bear happening! I should be home right now, laying in my bed and sulking around the house all day while I wait for something, _anything_ to happen, even though it never does and I..." The words Richie was going to say next died in his throat as he realized what he was saying.

Nothing _ever_ happened to him. He would wait around all day for something to occupy his mind, or at least give him something other to do than stare at his phone all day waiting for his parents to come home so he could have someone to talk to for the short amount of tie he had with them before they both went to bed, exhausted after a long day of work. It's not like he had any friends to talk to or spend time with, no girlfriend, (or boyfriend, for that matter) no job that he could be distracting himself with while getting payed. He just wished something would happen to him and take away his constant boredom and dare he say, crippling loneliness.

He sighed, holding his face in his hands. Everybody around him sat in silence, continuing to watch the boy. He began to aggressively rub his hands across his face, trying to lose his thoughts for as moment before he developed a brain cramp. "I just," he sighed once again, lifting his head out of his hands to look at the group in front of him, "I need a second. Can you give me a second?" His shoulders drooped as he admitted defeat, for the time being, and readied himself to slow his thoughts enough to make the room stop spinning.

When the others didn't respond, he took it as his cue to turn away and make his way to the far wall. The ground above him formed into steps once again. He had forgotten all about them, but now that he had stumbled upon them again, he felt that it was probably better to escape this room and think with fresh air, completely forgetting about the monstrous creature that had attacked him... it wasn't clear to him how long ago.

He trudged his way up the staircase, each step feeling like his feet grew five pounds heavier. He stepped through the opening, disappearing from the rest of the group as the entrance closed once again. The group looked around at each other, trying to think of what to do; the silence now hanging so heavy between them that it could be cut with a knife.

"So, what now?" Mike asked, looking around at the group again.

"Seriously, Mike?" Another voice spoke up. Mike snapped his head over to the voice, seeing a head of tight blond curls and a scowl on their face.

"What?" He asked in defense, "It's not like you have a plan either, Stan. This a all new territory for us. We've never dealt with a human before."

"Yeah! And it's _your_ fault we're in this mess. On the other hand, I _do_ have a plan, as a matter of fact." Stan crossed his arms tightly over his chest.

"Oh, you do? Great! I would love to hear it, Mr. KnowItAll." Mike scowled too now.

Beverly rolled her eyes, tuning out her friends; their petty bickering dissolving into muffled shouts of anger as she exited the same way Richie did just minutes earlier.

When she looked around, she spotted the human sitting with his back against a tree, his head stuffed in his knees. She carefully approached the boy, plopping herself down next to him and patting a hand against his shoe-clad foot. The boy startled a bit when he looked up, shoving his glasses back on his face and pushing them up the bridge of his nose clumsily. When he could finally see again, he realized that it was just her and calmed a bit.

"Hi," she started softly, smiling sweetly at the boy, as she realized he had been crying when he looked up at her. When there was no response, she continued, "Are you okay?" She asked, her voice still soft. She wasn't sure why she asked the question, seeing as she already knew what the answer was going to be, but she still asked.

Richie sighed, harshly rubbing his hands over his face before sighing and fixing his glasses against his face. "No." He mumbled, just barely loud enough to hear through noises of the forest. Leaves rustling and a small, warm breeze blowing past them. He looked away from the girl at his side, crossing his arms over his knees and placing his head on top, looking out at nothing.

Beverly turned towards him now, facing him with her entire body. "Can you tell me how you're feeling right now?" She asked, Richie turning his head towards her to look her in the eyes, before looking away.

He was silent for a few moments, trying to collect his thoughts enough to share them in a coherent sentence. "Well," He started, "Scared, for starters... kind of terrified, actually." He was looking down at his shoes now, staring at them as if tehy had all the answers to the universe, "Confused. Worried. Is that the same thing as scared? I don't know I just-" Richie sighed, somehow he managed to stop talking before he got ahead of himself, which was a great feat for Richard Wentworth Tozier.

Bev waited patiently to see if he could continue, but when he didn't, she spoke up again. "Can you tell me _why_ you're feeling this way? What's going through your mind right now?"

"I'm in another fucking world right now!" He exclaimed, throwing his arms into the air, "This all just feels like one big dream and I thought it was until I almost _died_ from whatever the fuck that thing was. Still not completely convinced that I'm not dreaming right now... I mean, I didn't even believe that shit like this existed until today," He sighed once again, finally turning his head to the side to face the girl at his side.

"That's understandable. You'll need time to adjust and comprehend everything; after all, you have only been here for no more than 30 mekrons." Beverly did her best to sympathize with him.

"'Mekrons'?" Richie finger quotes as he spoke the word. Beverly nodded her head in response, "What is that?" He asked, looking for more answers.

"Here in Derry, we have sekrons, mekrons, and lekrons." Beverly explained, "60 sekrons make up a mekron, 60 mekrons make up a lekron, and 12 lekrons make up a day."

"Wait, wait, wait... you're trying to tell me that I've only been here for _30 minutes_?" Richie asked, emphasis on the last two words. He was trying his hardest to wrap his mind around the fact that he had only been here for half an hour and he had alreadyseen magic, — to an extent — almost _died_ , met seven new people, then didn't die, then found out he would have to be stuck in a weird magical dimension for an entire fucking _year_ , but then also found out that only a month would have passed by back on earth? This was all far too much. Richie might have been begging the universe for something, _anything_ , to do to pass his slow, lonely days, but this was more than he bargained for!

"If that's what you call it back in the mortal world, then yes." Beverly nodded. Oh, right, he almost forgot. These people are also apparently immortal? Great. Hey, will someone up there taking care of the inner workings of his brain add that to the list, please? Thanks!

"I- did you just say 'day'?" He now asked, just realizing what she had explained to him.

"Yes? Why do you ask?" She cocked her head to the side, curious.

"How is every other frame of time in this universe something so far off from what we call them back on earth, but then you have the word 'day'? That doesn't even make any fucking sense!" He growled, his emotions hopping from one to another like a switch being flipped in him.

Beverly shrugged in response, not sure how to answer that question. Richie frowned at the girl in front of him, unsatisfied with the answer — or lack thereof — given.

_**To be continued...** _


	5. A Book is Worth More Words Than A Picture

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Richie gets introduced to the library.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, guys. Sorry that I released this chapter a bit late, I’ve been really swamped with homework lately, I hop you all understand.:)
> 
> Anyways, if you wanna know when I update or have any questions for me, you can find me on Instagram @ dumpster._.princess

When Richie finally takes a moment to stop thinking and realize where he is, he find himself surrounded by wooden table, chair, and bookshelves all around. The shelves are large, reaching higher than the floor to the ceiling in his own house. Every space is filled in with books, not one empty place. It seems as though all the colors in the building are muted, a wide array of different colors, but all dull. Not that it's a bad thing, it gives the space its own charm and cozy feeling.

The same light orbs that he saw hovering around earlier are dispersed throughout this space as well. Some sitting on top of surfaces, some hovering aimlessly up and down in the air, some traveling to a different part of the area. It seems as though these orbs have little minds of their own, similar to a small animal back on earth. Though, he finds that this isn't true when Beverly notices him staring at one and grabs his hand, saying:

"Don't worry, they won't hurt you; they're just light sources, they can't think for themselves." She tugs on his hand now, getting him to turn his face toward her, "Come with me," she smiles up at him, dragging him over to a spot in the room that has a tiny, fluffy circle covering the hardwood flooring and lots of pillow-like objects in the circle. She drags him into the circle, stopping and letting go of his hand to point at the ground and say, "Sit," she continues to smile, grabbing a glowing sphere and handing it to him as she adds on, "Stay here. I'll be right back."

Richie's gives the object a wary look before slowly taking it into his own hands. When nothing happens, he grasps it more firmly, rolling it over in his palms and inspecting the odd light. Beverly walks away to the other end of the library, grabbing onto Ben's hand while saying, "Come talk to the human with me," She smiles up at him. He simply smiles back, his sign of telling her okay and they make their way back over to the boy.

When they reach Richie again, he now has the sphere resting in one palm, while the index finger on his other hand is pointed outwards, poking at the shape. The two plop down in front of him, staring intently on the unfamiliar species. Richie looks away from the orb and up to face the two of them. He smiles at them, getting two smiles in return as Bev opens her mouth to speak.

"We don't want to overwhelm you, since we know you're struggling right now," Her smile turned into something a bit more sad, "but would you mind if we asked you some questions?"

Richie shook his head at her question, finding it odd she would ask permission, "Of course. There's no need to ask," His smile grew bigger when her face lit up, "that is, as long as I can ask you some questions too?" He cupped the small light in both of his hands now, resting them in his lap.

Beverly and Ben both nodded their heads at his question, the girl's a bit more excited. "Okay, for starters," Beverly began excitedly, "why are your ears shaped like that?" She pointed to where Richie's ears his behind his dark curls.

"Uhh... I'm actually not sure." The human shrugged, "Human anatomy, I guess? They never explained that one in health class," He gave a small chuckle.

The two in front of him both gave him a questioning look before Ben asked, "What is 'health class'?"

~~~

"So you're telling me that you guys _don't_ have school?" Richie gaped at the new friends in front of him. Or at least he hoped they were friends.

"What's that?" They asked in unison. Richie's surprised eyes grew even wider.

"There you guys are!" A voice called out from nearby, cutting Richie off just as he opened his mouth to respond. They all turned their heads in the direction of the voice to find Stan glaring at them, a small stick of books being held against his chest, his arms crossed over the backs of them. "What are you doing?"

"Talking with the Richie, what does it look like?" Beverly responded, her voice holding a 'duh' tone as she answered her friend.

"You guys are actually calling the human by its name now?" Stan scoffed, "Did you forget that we aren't supposed to get attached because its a _human_ and it _doesn't belong here_ and we're sending him back to the earth dimension as soon as we figure out how to reopen the portal before an entire Time Glips passes?" Stan now moved his eyes to glance over at Richie, the moving his eyes back to his friends again.

"Stan, we don't know how long it'll take for us to figure out how to reopen the portal before it opens back up itself. We might not even find a way." Ben shrugged.

"Yeah, don't you think it'd be... I don't know... _species-ist_ to continue to call him 'the human' instead of using his name?" Bev added, the two of them defending their newfound human friend.

"Oh!" Richie exclaimed out of the blue, "On earth, we would call that ' _inhumane_ '," Richie supplied, finger quoting the phrase as he used it.

"Yes!" Bev grinned at the new information, giving a couple small, fast claps towards Richie before turning back to face Stan with a knowing smirk on her face as she added, "It's _inhumane_ , Stanley." She said matter-of-factly. The response caused Ben and Richie to both chuckle, while it caused Stan to only scoff and roll his eyes, turning back around and walking to a large wooden table as he spoke up again.

"Can you two at least contribute to the effort of getting that pest back home and actually participate in what we came here to do anyways?" Stan turned his head to look at them again after he placed his books down on the table's surface.

"I've already told you, Stanley. He's not a pest, and he's not a parasite. Just because he's not like us, doesn't make him a deadly, ravenous pack animal. He's just like us... just human." Beverly sounded more serious saying that than she did anything else Richie has ever heard come from her mouth in the time he has been here.

The other two began to stand, signaling to Richie that he should probably stand too. Stan said nothing more, averting his attention from them to focus back on his books again. Beverly and Ben turned back to face Richie. "You can just go sit at the table if you want, or you can stay here. We're just going to go find some books and then we'll be back. We're just trying to look through them and see if they have any helpful information to help with this... predicament." Ben smiled, grabbing Beverly's hand and dragging her away to the thousands of books surrounding them in the seemingly endless space.

Richie nodded to them just before they headed off, standing there awkwardly and alone for a minute before he decided to sit at the large table that Stan sat at. He decided against sitting next to Stan, realizing that he was probably the last person Stan wanted see or talk to at the moment.

Richie settled on sitting across from someone else. He wasn't quite sure who it was, their head was down and he hasn't exactly been very focused the majority of his time in this new dimension. Could he be blamed though? It wasn't necessarily his fault that he had a billion thoughts all racking through his head at the speed of light. It didn't help that he didn't have anyone to focus on anymore and keep his thoughts at bay.

The person didn't pay him any mind as he sat down across from them, they just continued to focus on their book. They had a small stack of extremely thick books next to them and it seemed that they weren't really reading anything, just skimming through the pages looking for something and flipping to the next page when they didn't find it.

"Hi," Richie tried, but to no avail when the person didn't look up, nor respond to him. Now feeling more awkward than before — which he didn't think was possible... boy, was he wrong — he curled in on himself a bit, bouncing his right leg furiously under the table.

It wasn't long until Ben and Beverly finally emerged from the seemingly infinite maze of bookshelves, but it felt like an eternity. They both smiled at him as they reached the table, Ben going to sit across from Bev as she sat down next to the human. The both had small stacks of books with them as well, all of them looking at least 2,000 pages or more.

"Took you guys long enough!" Richie sighed, feeling relieved that two of the people that actually liked him were back.

"We weren't gone that long were we?" Ben asked, think he might have lost track of time.

"We were only gone for about 15 mekrons. I think he's just exaggerating." Beverly shrugged in response.

"It felt liked you were gone for a thousand years..." Richie groaned, throwing his head back as he did so for dramatic affect.

"We weren't?" Bev stated, though it came out and more of a question.

"I know that you weren't I just," Richie paused trying to think of the right words. When he struggled to find them, he just waved his hand around in the air, dismissing the conversation with a small ' _never mind_ '. Beverly and Ben shrugged in response and both grabbed a book, beginning to look through it to see if they could find anything to help them with their current situation.

"Hey... how did you guys learn how to read if you guys don't have school?" Richie asked, curious as he watched his new friends skim the pages of their books.

"Our parents," Ben replied simply as the two of them looked up at the human again.

"Oh, right," Richie said, feeling a bit stupid, "I don't know why I didn't realize you have parents." Richie chuckled a little bit.

"I think you mean _had_." The person sitting in front of Richie spoke up for the first time. Richie recognized the voice, but he couldn't remember who it belonged to.

"I- uh... sorry, what?" Richie asked, feeling confused.

"We _had_ parents." They repeated.

"You don't anymore..?"

"Nope." They answered, popping the 'p' at the end, "When we were four, all they adults collectively decided to abandon all their children here in Derry and " _protect earth_ " from all of the " _universe threatening dangers_ "." They bit out coldly, finger quoting the phrases they remembered their parents saying.

They picked up their stack of books without looking at the human, turning away and going back into the maze of bookshelves. "It's a bit of a tough subject for Eddie," Ben spoke as Richie watched him walk away, "he had a pretty good relationship with his parents, especially his dad. And then one day, they just... left him here. They just left us in the middle of the night without so much as a goodbye." Ben shrugged at the end of the sentence.

Richie turned back to look at Ben, "I'm so sorry..." He couldn't even imagine how he would handle his parents doing that to him. They were always at work anyways, but at least he got to see them at the end of the day; most of the time anyways, "If I would have known I wouldn't have-"

"You couldn't have known, Richie. You've only been here for a lekron," Beverly cut in, "Don't beat yourself up over it." She gave him a slightly sad smile.

"Most of us are okay with it anyways. We've grown used to it." Ben shrugged, "Eddie and Bill just took it the hardest."

Richie nodded, understanding. They sat in silence for a moment, nobody really having anything else to contribute to the conversation, that was until Richie had another question. "Wait- so if your parents just _left_ when you guys were so young, who raised you?" He had become entirely submerged in these people's pasts. It was as if it was some sort of interesting backstory or lore in a story or movie.

"Each other. We also had the older ones, but they're all assholes now. We used to all get along, that was until we. All grew older and they blamed us for our parents leaving, they still do it." Beverly supplied.

"Hold on- so you mean to tell me that they blame you for all the adults leaving? How does that even- I don't- _what_?" Richie struggled to wrap his head around their reasonings but it proved to be an unsuccessful attempt.

"Yeah, something about how we're all disappointments and they all left because they were ashamed of us being their offspring. It's always something different, but that's the basic gist of what they tell us." Beverly now turned back to her book as she spoke to the human beside her.

"You guys know that's not why they left you guys, right?" Richie asked, sure that it wasn't the reason, even if it was, that wasn't an option in his mind. He got a small _'we know_ ' in return from the both of them before he spoke up again, "There has to be a perfectly good reason for why they left. It had to be something really important or something if they haven't come back yet..."

" _Ha_!" Richie heard come from not too far ahead of him. When he looked towards the noise, he saw Eddie emerge from the bookshelf maze and head back towards his spot in front of Richie, " _No_. They were just assholes who didn't want to deal with their little disappointments of offspring. They never cared for us anyways." He rolled his eyes as he plopped back down in the chair.

"Eddie, you _know_ that isn't true." Ben looked over at him, giving him caring eyes.

"Then why haven't they come back, Benjamin? Answer me that." The boy glared, crossing his arms tightly over his chest, "It's been fourteen mekrons."

"They're probably dead." Stan bit out from his seat at the end of the table, everyone turned to look at him reading his book, only now realizing he had been listening on in the entire conversation.

"We can only hope." Eddie scoffed, rolling his eyes and turning back to look through one of the books.

_**To be continued...** _


	6. Piss Baby Bill

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What could be better than 2,000 words of mostly bickering from our very own losers?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everyone! Sorry this chapter came out a bit late too, I had a bit of a rough week lately but I uploaded as soon as I could. If you have any questions or something that you would like to talk with me about, you can contact me about it @ dumpster._.princess on Instagram or in the comments.
> 
> Hope you enjoy this chapter! :)

Not long after the argument over why the kids' parents left Richie decided to go off on his own to get away from all of the tension between them. For the most part, he had just sat there watching it all unravel infront of him, feeling awkward and guilty for even bringing up the subject in the first place. 

He was only glancing through the books for a moment before he his internal compass shifted itself and told him to walk in a different direction. He had now been walking through the aisles of shelves for a few minutes, his brain telling him to go a different way every time. He wasn't exactly sure where he was going, he just knew that his urge felt as if it was being pulled by something else.

It was only when he finally stopped and took a minute to think that he realized he was stuck. As he continued further, he noticed that certain bookshelves would look familiar, while others would be a brand new sight to look at. He wasn't sure what was happening, but it was messing with his mind. At some point, he grabbed a light orb and started laying with it, using it as something to fidget with, his actions clearly showing his newfound distress.

It felt like he was trapped and going in circles, his internal compass throwing him every which direction.He wasn't sure how much time had passed him when he finally ran into a familiar face.

"Oh my god, Mike! I'm so glad I found you," Richie exclaimed when he saw the other boy, tossing the light orb aimlessly behind his shoulder.

"Actually, I found you." Mike smiled, giving a small chuckle. "Did you get stuck?" He asks, now grabbing the other boy by the bicep as he guides him out of the walls of shelves.

"What? Pssh, noooo..." Richie waved off the question before he looked at Mike and saw the knowing look on his face, "Maybe." He looked away from the other boy as he admitted it, "Don't tell the others!" He quickly added on before Mike laughed.

"Oh, trust me, they already know." He grinned, to which Richie's jaw dropped, "Do you know how long you've been in here for?" Mike asked when he saw the human's face, his voice taking on a more serious tone now. When the other boy shook his head in return, Mike just patted the arm he was already holding with his free hand, giving him a look of sympathy.

Mike went silent again and looked a head, Richie doing the same. The human gave a sigh of relief when he finally saw the exit, hanging his head in relief when they crossed the threshold and entered back in top type main space. "That was a literally nightmare," Richie more breathed than said when they were finally out of there.

"Oh, good! Thank turtle you found him!" Beverly exclaimed, bother her and Ben running up to greet him when they noticed their friends.

"You were in there for quite awhile, are you okay?" Ben asked, putting his hand on Richie's shoulder. The human responded with a nod and the question of ' _how long was I in there?_ ', to which he received a, "Oh, you were gone for two lekrons, technically almost three, but part of that time was how long Mike took to retrieve you." Ben answered.

_"He wouldn't. Stop. Moving_." Mike exaggerated his words for emphasis on the situation he was in.

"How did I get stuck in there like that?" Richie gaped at the fact he had been in there for almost three hours without even realizing. During his time here, he has also learned that it is a regular occurrence to translate their 'odd' words into English.

"Well, maybe the layout is different than libraries on earth?" Bev questioned before Mike stepped in saying:

"I read somewhere that in the earth dimension, their bookshelves are still." He smiled proudly.

"Wait wait wait- that's why I was stuck? Your bookshelves _move_?" Richie gaped at the group in front of him.

"Well, yes. It's a normal thing." Mike shrugged.

"Well not where I come from! Why did nobody mention it?"

"Again, its a regular thing here..." The other two shrugged in agreement to Mike's statement. All Richie did in response was sigh, realizing he couldn't win this argument.

~~~

By the time they left the library, hours had gone by and it was now nighttime. The group became tired and decided top call it a night, deciding to pick back up where they had left off the next day.

While still in type library, after getting lost, Richie passed the time by going through and looking at the books that the others had already scanned through. It was easy to get lost in the strange books, learning a bit more about their world just by reading. He found the following:

The universe he was in was called "Derry". He realized that all the books were written in English, but there were pages scattered around in an odd language that Richie didn't understand. Though the group was looking for books that contained subjects about or near portals, there was one book in particular that he found about creatures. Strange beings that were apparently native to this world. Of course, that book had been volume 56 of 249, which meant that whatever he fond in there would end up being little to no help, unless he happened to run into one of the creatures mentioned. He still took extra time to look through that particular book though. Some of the photos on the pages were adorable, some odd looking but strangely cute, and others looked as though a small child could die of fright at the sight. Those were the creatures that Richie wanted to avoid the most; pure nightmare fuel.

As they had just left the library, the group began to discuss the first matter at hand.

"Who's house are we all staying at?" Asked Stan, unenthusiastically as he stopped walking, a sign for all the others to stop as well.

"What do you mean?" Mike asked.

"I mean that wherever the human goes, we all need to be there. He's not going to go home with one of you three," he explained, pointing to Bev, Mike and Ben, who all stood around Richie, naturally, "alone. That's too dangerous."

"There's nothing dangerous about Richie." Bev scowled at him, grabbing Richie securely around the bicep as if to protect him.

"Of course there is, he's a human. But I don't want him anywhere near Georgie." Bill agreed, suddenly giving a small shudder at one of his own thoughts.

"You can't leave him alone though, Bill. He's been alone all day," Ben reminded him.

"Who's Georgie?" Richie asked but was given no response as Eddie spoke immediately after, saying:

"Why don't we just let the human sleep alone? We can go back and leave him in the library or something." The shorter boy shrugged, Richie now looking at him and realizing his height, could no longer focus on anything else as the group began to argue that leaving the human alone could get him killed and that bringing him with them would get them killed.

Eddie was about a whole head shorter than Richie, with fluffy and soft looking brown hair that grew in small curls at the ends. Down from his hair, were two thick, perfectly shaped eyebrows that lead down to long, thick eyelashes covering the largest pair of soft honey-chocolate eyes he had ever seen in his life. Richie thought as he stared, that he could die a happy fulfilled man (boy) if he was granted the power to only stare into his eyes for the rest of his life. Even further downward, he had a tiny, perfect button nose. There was a splatter of what seemed like a million freckles perfectly spread across his soft cheeks and the small bridge of his nose and now Richie wished he had two pairs of eyes; one to stare into the boys' eyes for the rest of eternity, and one to sit there and just count his freckles over and over again. The freckles would be a bit odd to any regular person, given that they were practically glowing on his skin - though not quite - but Richie was too amazed with everything about the boy in front of him to even care, it just made them even better. The last ting Richie noticed were his lips. He had plump, perfect lips that were just so naturally rosy that any girl he went to school with would kill to have and they looked softer than pillows and his very first thought upon seeing then was: ' _I want to kiss them.'_

Richie was pulled out of his own mind as he had that thought, his mouth letting out a very loud, involuntary, raspy squeak of a sound. The rest of the group stopped their arguing at the sound, turning to stare at him bewildered as he clapped a hand to his mouth, his face beginning to burn red. They continued to stare at him curiously as he muttered a soft, "Sorry..."

"What was that?" Bill asked.

"Nothing- I just- uhm-" The human stuttered, looking for something to answer with and as quickly as possible. "I'm scared of the dark!" He blurted quickly as the idea reached his mind, cursing that mind only seconds after spitting out the words.

Bev, Ben and Mike had all looked sympathetic towards the boy, while Bill and Eddie gave him curious looks, and Stan tried his hardest to try to contain laughter that began bubbling up inside him.

"See?" Beverly defended, "Totally harmless," She smiled at the other three. It was obvious that Bill had been turning it over in his head, weighing the options at hand, while Stan and Eddie just continued to give disapproving looks.

"Okay... well, Beverly won't let us leave him alone for the night which automatically means Ben won't either," Bill turned to glare at Ben for a moment before turning back to look at the others around him, "And he's _not_ going to go home with just one of us where we're alone and vulnerable..." He continued to think it through out loud, "We can all stay at my house. Georgie has already been home alone all day, I can't leave him alone all night too. He can just stay up in his room, I guess." Bill explained, the group all started walking again as the sun lowered in the sky, "Besides, as leader of the group, it would probably make most sense to-"

"Woah, woah, woah-" Mike cut him off, "Who ever made you leader of the group?"

"It's always been that way!" Bill exclaimed back, trying to claim his ground.

"No, no," Beverly pipped up, "I'm with Mike. You're not the leader." She was still holding onto Richie's bicep as the walked side by side, but now her other hand was on Ben's bicep too, who was walking across from Richie on the other side of the shorter girl.

"Since when?" Bill questioned, his voice almost raging at this point, "Look, I'll even ask Stan! Stan, I'm the leader of the group, aren't I?"

"Woah, nuh-uh!" Stan fired back, "You are _not_ bringing me into this!"

"What? Stan, come on!" Bill pleaded but only received a shake of the head in return. "Okay, fine! Eddie."

"Don't ask questions you don't want the answers to." Eddie replied dully, a smirk tugging on the corners of his lips as he caught Bill's incredulous expression from his peripheral. Richie gave a short, loud cackle at Eddie's response, to which he ignored.

Bill huffed a pouty breath through his nose, speaking again, "I'm not even going to bother asking Ben then. Turtle knows you're just going to agree with them."

"Hey!" Ben argued back, slightly offended, "It's not my fault you make false assumptions of yourself," He glared slightly at the back of Bill's head before Richie's laughing caught on to him.

**_To be continued..._ **


	7. The Cellphone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Little Georgie is here! Annnnnd..! Richie explains phones to the others :)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everyone! I apologize for another chapter being late AGAIN. My high school just started hybrid learning so that’s G R E A T (haha no).
> 
> Anyways! It’s here and on a Wednesday as usual! Follow me on Instagram @ dumpster._.princess if you wanna get out-of-context-spoilers when I post a new chapter.
> 
> That’s all! :D

When they had finally gotten to Bill's place, Richie had realized that all doors in this world were tree portals, seeing as that was the only thing they ever went through to emerge in a different location.

As soon as they had crossed over the threshold of the portal and into Bill's house, a small boy came running at them, crashing into Bill and squeezing him tightly around the torso as he looked up at the older boy's face. "Billy, Billy!" The boy had exclaimed as Bill crouched down to pick him up and hold him in his arms, "Why were you gone so long? You said you would be back soon and you weren't," The boy wrapped his arms around Bill's neck as Bill held him tight.

"I know, Georgie, I know," Bill spoke, "I just got a bit caught up with things, it wasn't supposed to take a song as it did. I'm sorry,"

"Why couldn't you have just taken me with you?" Georgie frowned, obviously still upset about being left alone for so long.

"It could have been something dangerous and you could have gotten hurt. Besides, I couldn't fight and keep an eye on you at the same time."

The small boy in his arms gasped, "You fought? What was it?" He exclaimed, now full of interest in the day the other boy had.

"No, no," Bill gave a calm chuckle at the other boy, "We didn't have to fight anyone... but we did find something very interesting..."

Georgie became eager for Bill to tell him what they had found, jumping up and down in his arms and shouting excitedly. Bill told him that he would tell him but only when they got into his bedroom. Georgie agreed easily and slipped from the older boy's arms, jumping his way up a flight of earth stairs that Richie hadn't noticed until now.

Once Georgie was out of earshot, Bill turned to the rest of the group. "Keep the human in check, I should only be gone for a few mekrons." He ordered, his tone of voice showing he meant business. He turned around swiftly, making his way up the stairs and after the younger boy.

The group scattered around the spacious room before them, Richie sticking with Beverly, Ben and Mike — as per usual — while Eddie and Stan split off from them, having their own quite conversation formed from mumbles and serious stares at one another.

Not after long, the group heard light footsteps pounding furiously against the floor above them, soon seeing the same little boy (Richie had found out that he was Bill's little brother after asking the others once Bill had gone from the room) run down the stairs and turn towards the group, obviously finding something that sparked even more excitement in his big, adorable eyes.

He grinned widely and ran over to Richie, standing right in front of him and staring deep into his eyes, "A human..." He giggled softly, practically entranced at the thought that he was seeing a real human.

Richie smiled widely at the boy, giving him a small wave as he responded with, "Hello,"

Georgie waved back, still smiling until he stopped abruptly and gave Richie one of those stares that you would get from a random kid sitting in a cart at Walmart as you passed by; one of those glaring looks that makes you suddenly feel very nervous for no reason, as if the child can read everything about you by just looking at you and is judging you for all you mistakes and regretful choices of the past... like they know exactly what you did even if you did nothing.

"How are you a human?" He asked, his tone now just barely crossing the line into sounding extremely judgmental, "You look normal."

Richie paused for a moment, not sure how he was supposed to respond to a question like that until he had a lightbulb moment as he stared at he small boy. He lifted his hands to each side of his head and gently pulled the hair back, tucking it behind his ears and revealing them to be extremely un-pointy. He smiled again at the look of shock on Georgie's face, the smile growing into a shit-eating grin as Bill started talking to his little brother and telling him to get back upstairs as Georgie ignored him.

Out of nowhere, Georgie reached his hands out and up at Richie's face, grabbing both cheeks with his small hands and squeezing them almost harshly, squishing and squeezing his face in every which direction now, making Richie's face contort into odd looks and making him laugh.

After long, Bill rushed in to reach around Georgie and grab both of his wrists tightly, pulling them away from the human's face in an instant, making the lot of them whip their heads to look over at Bill. " _Don't touch, George._ " Bill had said in a quiet, low, dark voice, making Georgie's face turn suddenly sad.

At the switch in mood on the little boy, Richie stepped in quickly, saying: "That's okay, Bill. I don't mind," He smiled, but it had immediately vanished at Bill's response.

" _I_ mind, human." Bill had growled, a fire burning in his eyes, promising to murder Richie right this second if he stepped out of line.

"Billy-" Georgie choked out, now starting to sound close to tears, "you're hurting me- let go..." He pleaded, at some point, Bill had tightened his fists dangerously tight around the younger's small wrists, squeezing harder than intended. Bill immediately let go of his little brothers wrists with a small apology. "That's okay, Billy," Georgie rubbed his wrists before looking back up at Bill, "Can I _please_ stay? I won't be bad, I promise!"

"Georgie, no. It's not safe for you to be around us right now, I don't know that we can trust this human and-"

"Please!" Georgie cut him off, "You were gone all day..." at this, Stan stepped in to say from across the room:

"He has a point. You did leave him here all day and now you're trying to send him upstairs and lock him away in his room all night." He shrugged when Bill gave him an incredulous look, adding, "It's not that I think the human can be trusted by any means, but you're turning into your parents."

Of course, hearing this didn't make Bill any happier about the situation but he didn't dare argue with Stan, knowing he was right. "Just keep him away from the human and he should be fine," Stan reasoned.

Bill gave in almost instantly, feeling angry with himself at how easily he let Stan's words get to him. He was nothing like his poor excuses of parents!

...Or at least he didn't wanna be...

~~~

It had only been a little while after Richie's interaction with Georgie before he began to feel hot. He was sure it had something to do with the fact that they had some sort of heating system or something in their houses. Though it was odd, considering the library had been quite cold.

He took off his jacket when the heat had finally gotten to him, realizing as he had finally gotten it off his shoulders that there was something weighing down the right side of it. Curious, he gave the jacket a suspicious look, turning it around and digging through the pocket to the right.

He was met with the familiar feeling of a long, thin object. Encircling it with his fingers, he fished it out of the pocket and tossed the jacket aside, giving a short gasp of surprise before a loud WHOOP of excitement.

Everyone around turned to look at him at the sudden noise but he had ignored them, his entire being filled to the brim with joy and a sense of security now. He held the object with both hands shaking them up and down excitedly, happily stomping his feet against the floor and all the while laughing like a maniac, endlessly repeating: “YESYESYESYES!”

“What is that?” Bev asked curiously.

“IT’S MY PHONE!” Richie grinned at her, looking almost insane at this point, “I can’t believe I forgot that I had it with me!”

“What is a... f-wown..?” Ben asked while leaning closer to get a better look, as did Beverly and Mike.

“It’s pronounced _f-own_ ,” The human corrected, “and it’s basically like Teenager 101. Y’know, you can call and text with it — but the only time you ever actually use it for calling is when you need 911 or you’re on FaceTime — you use it for social media and taking pictures, you can play games on it.”

“You take it everywhere with you and lose it at least once a week. Then you search for it for a full twenty minutes and when you can’t find it you have to nag your parents to call it for you, but then it always ends up being in the place that you looked for it the most but somehow you can only notice it when it’s ringing. Karen’s like to give you dirty looks in the street for using it because: _‘in my day we didn’t have cellphones! We had to get our entertainment by taking two rocks and smashing them together!’_.”

“Oh yeah, old people like to say shit like that a lot too. They’re always angry because their childhoods sucked, but they’re also convinced that they’re the best for some reason? It’s like, calm down , _Harold_ , you can’t have it both ways!”

Everyone sat listening to Richie rant, most of them gave him odd looks, but Beverly, Ben and Georgie all seemed enamored by his passion about the “phone”.

“You seem very... happy, about the fwown,” stayed Mike, wondering as to why.

“Yeah! This means I can call my parents and tell them everything! I might even be able to use it to get home,” Richie explained, unlocking the device and tapping rapidly on its screen.

Soon enough, he was bringing it up to his ear, his face falling as it immediately went to voicemail. He brought the phone back down, giving it a look of utmost disappointment as if it was the device’s fault. It was only then when he looked at the top of the screen that he groaned loudly, facepalming.

“Of course! You don’t have WiFi, you don’t have cell towers, you don’t have _the internet_.” He sighed looking back down at his phone again, “You people don’t even have satellites, do you?”

The group’s confused looks at one another was all the answer Richie had needed. He felt his stomach twist and turn in a disgusting way as rage coursed through his veins. He tossed his phone to the floor with a clatter as he let out a loud, angry grunt.

He leaned back in his seat and harshly rubbed his hands over his face (knocking around his glasses in the process) as Beverly bent down to pick up the device and Ben placed a comforting hand to his forearm.

“It’ll be okay. We’re gonna find a way to get you home either way.” Mike smiled at him softly, though he couldn’t see it.

All the human responded with was an upset huff through the nose in protest, though he didn’t know what he was protesting. He was just in a bad mood, okay?

When he took his hands away from his face and fixed his glasses back upon the bridge of his nose, Beverly handed him his phone back and he began to look at the mobile device in disappointment once again.

“This thing is pretty useless now that I can’t connect to anything anymore,” Richie sighed, unlocking the phone again and scrolling across his screen, “can this thing even do _anything_ anymore?” He tapped every icon on the screen as he spoke, “The only time I’ve ever gone without WiFi or cell service is when I was camping, and even then I had my mobile data and could walk into the town just next to the woods.”

Richie suddenly looked up at his phone, staring straight ahead with a glossy look in his eyes as he spoke again. “Wow. I just had quite the revelation... I’m almost seventeen years old and I am basically useless without my phone. I mean, I knew that it was basically a part of me... but imagine how hard life is going to be without being able to have the universe’s secrets at the tips of my fingers...”

_To be continued..._


	8. Woe- Yankee Wit No Brim-

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Think of it this way,” Richie turned his head again to look at him once more, “at least you still get to see your parents again. Eventually.” He reasoned at the end before adding, “I’ll never have that.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I fully apologize for the title of this chapter! I couldn’t think of anything and this meme was stuck in my head all day. Once again, I’m sorry.
> 
> You can follow me on insta @ dumpster._.princess 
> 
> I know I really should be more active on my Instagram account, but I’ve just been overly busy, so I apologize for that as well.

That night, Richie had a difficult time falling asleep. He was sleeping in the living room along with the others (he had found out previously that night that their structures were build surprisingly similarly to human structures), but it he didn't feel any comfort being in a strange place. He let the course of the day roll thorough his mind as he willed it to turn off and let him sleep. He hadn't quite adjusted to being in a completely different universe, and he didn't expect to adjust at all; he was going home soon and this whole nightmare experience would finally be over with. Though, he couldn't say he was extremely ecstatic about getting back to a universe were he had school and no more friends by his side.

He wasn't even sure if he had fallen asleep at all that night. His mind stayed on track the entire time, which was hard for him to accomplish even when he was awake.

By the time he had awoke (or realized if it was day time, he wasn't really sure), he realized everyone else was still asleep except for Georgie, who was staring at him. He smiled at the little boy and got a big smile in return as he crawled swiftly across the floor to get to Richie's side, sitting back on the heels of his feet when he had reached him and smiling the type of smile only a young kid could make; the type of smile that conveyed pure innocence and unadulterated joy.

“Good morning,” Richie said. Georgie gave a laugh in return, “what’s so funny?”

Georgie shook his head, “I just like you. You’re the first human I have ever seen _ever_!” The little boy exclaimed happily.

“Well, then I’m honored,” Richie laughed in response.

Georgie fired away with thousands of questions, Richie answering each one for him, and by the time the others had awoke — which hadn’t taken too long — Georgie has Richie’s phone held in his small hands and was rapidly tapping the circular button on the screen, snapping dozens of pictures of himself and his new human friend.

As predicted, Bill wasn’t very ecstatic. Though, he gave in just a touch when he had come to the realization that Richie had had opportunities to pull something if he wanted, yet did. Yet, that didn’t mean he trusted him.

~~~

Weeks seemed to drag on slow and tirelessly. Richie had started adjusting to his surroundings and his new friends not long after he came to Derry, but he was still learning things everyday.

He learned more and more of his friends the longer he spent with them, and the longer he spent with them, the more that they accepted him. Bill had finally become comfortable with him around all the time and had started taking quite a liking to the human boy.

Stan and Eddie had even started being okay with him around. Stan had also taken quite a liking to Richie, — not that he would ever admit that — but Eddie was still struggling a bit behind the rest when it came to actually liking him instead of just accepting he was stuck with them.

They spent most of the time in those past weeks at the library. The searched endlessly through hundreds of books, but to no avail. At one point, Ben thought he had found something worth while, sadly, it had just explained how the portal opened annually.

Richie had learned a ton about Derry, including figuring out how to use the library.Though he supposed he should be spending his time helping his friends find out how to open the portal and get himself back home and stick to reading on the subject, he found himself fascinated with seemingly every other book there was in the library.

He had apologized for this at the start, but the others brushed it off. At his surprise, Beverly responded with:

“You’re gonna need to know how to get around here. We can’t tell you everything. Besides, there’s already six of us working on this.”

Richie had found himself stuck in his second-grade-self again. He always enjoyed reading a lot when he was younger, but he had grown up and out of the hobby when his parents had gotten him a new bike for his sixth birthday (one without training wheels), and then again when he had gotten his first cell phone.

He still managed to find a way to use his phone though; as is expected from teenagers. He mostly used his camera to take pictures with or of his new friends, photos of Derry’s oddities and wonders, or pages of fascinating creatures he would find in books.

After long though, Richie began to feel odd in the world once again. Of course, he knew that he was out of place and didn’t belong in the place he was, but this had began happening just after he was getting used to Derry.

He would find himself staying up at late hours of the night, scrolling through photos and videos of him with his parents, or just his parents alone. Videos of them on vacations, photos of them spending quality time together. This had been the third night in a row doing this when he had finally figured out what was wrong with him.

He was homesick.

Sure, it was bound to happen eventually, but it had never really occurred to him that he would start to feel this way after some time.

It was late, but everyone had still been up that night. Thinking about being back at home with his parents right now sounded so amazing just then. He knew he didn’t have a whole lot going for him back on earth, but it had been everything he had ever known.

Suddenly, he had felt tears begin to prick at his eyes, a stinging sensation burning at them. If he had been alone, sure! If everyone else had been asleep, great! But they weren’t asleep, he wasn’t by himself, he was just out in the open and he wasn’t about to drown all his new friends in his sorrows, so he had quickly excused himself and made his way outside.

He hadn’t walked far until he found himself in the clearing where he knew the clubhouse was in. He didn’t go down there, instead, he continued forth, making his way to a cliff side with a large body of water below. He sat on the edge, dangling his legs and staring up at the night sky.

He took in the sight of Derry’s four separate moons that lay upon the dark sea of stars. It was so different from anything he had ever seen before, entranced by the sight of it. He had momentarily forgotten about all his worries, mindlessly pulling his legs to his chest for a reason he could explain.

Everything was silent and his mind was at peace. That was until he heard a crackle of twigs being crushed and leaves being rustled behind him.

He had turned his head so fast that he had the strange question: _could I have snapped my neck doing that?_ For just a split second before he saw what had caused the commotion.

There, standing in front of him and free from the trees, stood the one and only Eddie. He had a leaf stuck in his curls and Richie tried his hardest to focus all his attention on that as the boy came closer.

“Hey,” Eddie said softly as he sat down beside the other boy.

Richie wiped his tears quickly at the other’s presence and looked over at him, confused at the prospect of Eddie willingly talking to him if not to argue, let alone sitting next to him. “Uh... hi,” Richie waited to see if he would say anything else. Apparently not. “What are you doing here? And... talking to me?”

Eddie was silent for awhile and it was driving the human insane. Why would he have followed him all the way out here to just ignore him some more? He was extremely confused.

Just as the silence was about to break Richie, Eddie spoke again, “I know how you’re feeling,” The statement had Richie becoming suddenly stiff.

“What do you mean? I’m fine, Eds! I don’t-“ Richie’s rambling had been cut short by Eddie speaking again.

“Don’t call me that. I know that look, Richie.” Eddie has been keeping his gaze focused on the sky above, never once moving. “I’ve _worn_ that look. More times than I can count; not that that’s a good thing, but... I know how you feel and... I’m sorry you have to go through all of this...” though he avoided Richie’s gaze while speaking, the response he got made him look over.

“Yeah right,” Richie scoffed at the fact Eddie thought he understood his situation, “Have you ever gotten yourself stuck in a different dimension where you know absolutely nothing and everyone hated you until they were forced to accept you?”

Eddie looked away again as he answered, “Well, no.” He paused for a second of well needed silence before continuing, “But I do know what it’s like to miss my parents...”

This time, the silence that came was less than well needed, it was almost suffocating considering how long it lasted. Finally, Richie mustered up the only thing he had been thinking about the past few minutes, “So, how did you cope? Y’know... without your parents around?”

Eddie stared at him as he spoke this time, “Well... I faced the reality of the situation. But in the midst of that, I guess I also learned to accept that the people who actually loved me were still here, still by my side. That they were the ones I needed to care about... because they’re all I have now, and I know they would never leave me.”

“Yeah, but that’s different,” Richie sighed.

“How so?”

“My parents never left _me_. I left _them_.” Richie let go of his knees, sliding his legs out in front of him and leaning back on his hands as he looked away from Eddie this time.

Eddie looked forward as well, humming in thought before responding with, “Think of it this way,” Richie turned his head again to look at him once more, “at least you still get to see your parents again. Eventually.” He reasoned at the end before adding, “I’ll never have that.”

Richie gave him a sad look at his outlook on the situation, though he knew it was true, it was still sad. Eddie gave him a small reassuring smile when he saw the human’s response, finishing the conversation with, “And for the record... I don’t hate you...” he looked away shyly at the last part and began to stand up, getting ready to walk away and finishing of with, “at least not anymore,” he smiled and stalked off away from Richie, who was no longer feeling as sad.

~~~

After that, Richie and Eddie has grown slightly closer. At least, Eddie seemed to like him a bit more. All the stupid nicknames and off colored jokes had him still on the fence, though.

Richie had began turning to Eddie to help him cope and it seemed to be doing the trick. It seemed like helping someone else go through what Eddie went through was helping him too.

A few other changes had been recently made too. The group had gotten tired of being cooped up in the library all day everyday, so the made a switch to stacking piles of books in their arms and heading down to the clubhouse or one of their houses during the days.

Bill now started bringing Georgie along with them (apparently due to the annoyance of his nagging). Georgie often talked to Richie and enjoyed sitting on his lap to read what he was reading or have the ability to steal his full attention when he wanted it.

Richie had also recently started doing everything in his power to make sure his phone didn’t die, trying his hardest to stretch the battery life as long as possible. It proved to be somewhat affective, but considering he had gone awhile before that without realizing he had nothing to charge it with, it wouldn’t be able to last long anyways.

And last but not least: Richie _finally_ got some new fucking clothes!

Of course, he had complained for two weeks straight and of course, Bev being the mother of the group, had done everything in her power to try and make suitable clothes for the human.

She was used to making the usual garments of pants and underclothes, but she struggled to figure out how shirts where supposed to fit together, along with jackets.

When she discussed her troubles with Richie, he had explained to her that he “didn’t need anything fancy” and that he would appreciate having any new clothes all the same. He requested for her to not worry about it and just make whatever she was used to making.

In the end, Richie had multiple new pairs of clothes, and he now dressed almost exactly like the rest of his friends. Though it lacked originality, the clothes were unlike anything he had ever worn before. They were unimaginably soft and extremely durable. They kept him warm when they would enter somewhere cold, but it was also breathable and kept him cool when he knows he would have been hot in regular human clothes.

He loved them and was completely ecstatic.

  
**To be continued...**


	9. So You Want to Know About Maturin...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Your question?” Eddie said.
> 
> “Right! Uh...” Richie paused, thinking, “I forgot.” He laughed, earning a groan from Eddie in response, but before Eddie could actually voice his complaints, Richie cut in, “Oh wait! I remember now. You guys use the phrase “Turtle” a lot, why? Is your god like a turtle or something?”
> 
> Eddie smiled, “So you want to know about Maturin.” Eddie hummed, thinking to himself, “We’d better start from the basics, then.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, everyone! I really hope you’re enjoying this story so far. I’ve already got some ideas for making this into a dilogy, so let me know what you think of that, please!
> 
> As always, you can find me on Instagram @ dumpster._.princess for notifications when I post a new chapter, possibly drawings in the future if I get confident enough, and more from me!

"Well, well, well, well... what is it we have here?"

At the sound of the voice, the entire group had looked up, the six of them wearing looks of anger or resent while Richie wore one of confusion. When he saw where the face connected to the voice, the confused look grew more confused. He had been here for a month by now and had never seen this person... but how? Granted, the others (who he has by now dubbed the losers) don't really let him travel far beyond the limits between the library, the clubhouse, or any of their places.

When Richie looked around, he noticed that there was another, smaller group with the person who spoke. He also hadn't failed to notice that his friends began shielding him away from them as Bill spat out, "N-nothing. We're just he-head-headed to th-the l-library."

Since when did Bill have a stutter? You'd think Richie'd have noticed by now, right? It wasn't even two minutes into the interaction and it had just occurred to him how little he probably knows about all his friends and Derry still.

"Are you lying?" Asked the same person again, this time leaning into Bill's space, shoving their faces far too close together. He wasn't sure what it was about the group, but they gave Richie the creeps.

"No, Henry. We're not lying, we're just going to the library. Just because you're too stupid to read, doesn't mean everyone else is." Eddie spit out at the group.

' _So **that's** Henry? Huh... I really though he would be better looking..._' Richie though to himself as he took in the appearance of the person in front of their group.

"You'd better watch your mouth, Kaspbrak." Henry glared before continuing, "I know something's up... I know a lie when I smell it," he glanced around the group, apparently too stupid to realize there was an extra person there... maybe he really was that dumb.

"Really?" Eddie mocked, "Because all I can smell is a bunch of losers who haven't showered in weeks." He learned those last few phrases from Richie after he started taking a liking to him. They spend so much time together now that he's learned human words and how to use them. It makes him satisfied, as if easily understanding a second language.

"What did he just say..?" Another voice asked from behind Henry.

"Shut up, Patrick!" Henry snarled before turning back to face the group, "Look, Kaspbrak, I don't know what you just said to me... but when I find out, you're going to regret it,"

"Uh huh... you make a very convincing argument. Would you like to share with the class how exactly you'll figure out what I'm saying?" Once again, another thing he learned from Richie.

Henry and his goons looked dumbfounded by all the weird words a phrases coming from the small boy's mouth. Outraged, Henry yelled, "Stop using all those weird words! They're stupid. I don't need to understand what you're saying to know that you're mocking me, and you will regret it, mark my words..."

"Okayyyy, well! It's been real fun, but we've gotta go now. Bye!" Beverly cut the argument short, trying her best to shove the group along.

Just as they thought they were making a clean getaway, someone spoke up from behind them, saying, "Wait a sekron... who's that you have with you?" The group froze, staying still as statues and not daring to turn around, "I don't recognize anybody like that, do you, Hen?" Hoping against hope that they hadn't been caught, but knowing they had, the group turned around slowly.

When Richie had turned around he was met face to face with Henry walking straight at him and a smaller male that looked like him — only he looked about Richie's age and more attractive — doing the same right at his side. When the two approached him, they grazed their eyes up and down the length of his body, Richie suddenly feeling extremely uncomfortable in his own clothes as they inspected him. It felt as though his skin was crawling, but stretching too tight against his bones all at the same time, he wanted to jump out of it, escape the squeezing sensation that he felt in his chest, promising to crush his heart until he was long gone. There was air trapped in his lungs but it felt as though they were caving in on themselves. His face burned red with the notion he had been caught in a different universe and hen would have to suffer to pay the price; as if he wasn't enough already.

_Richard-fucking-Tozier, rule number one: Never go into strange, mystical portals! It never leads to anything good!_

"Of course you've seen him before!" Stan shouted from behind Richie, breaking him out of the attention and affectively easing his nervousness that decided to turn up on full-blast. "It's like Eddie said: You're just too stupid to know anything." Stan shrugged, grabbing Richie by the shoulder and dragging him back. The group turned and made their way to the library, Henry and his goons shouting stuff at them along the way, but Stan just told Richie to ignore them and keep his head down.

Apparently that's how they always avoided trouble with them. Learned it over time. It seemed unwise to Richie for them to not constantly fight back and stand their ground, but maybe that's why he didn't have many friends back on earth after his only few left. Actually, after they left... he didn't have any. None. Nada. Zip. Zilch.

Things were looking up when they finally got to the library, that was until they meet through the entrance and caught a glimpse at the place. It was _not_ like that when they visited two days ago. The entire library was completely ruined and torn apart, there was also thick, heavy layers of... dust..? coating everything.

"Great," Mike sighed, "Dust Bunnies."

~~~

After the group had taken care of the Dust Bunnies, Richie and Eddie had volunteered to dispose of them and were sent off while the rest of the group cleaned up the library.Beverly handed Richie the sack filled with Dust Bunnies and gave the boys a smile before they left.

As they started on their way, Richie struggled to keep the bag still. All the Dust Bunnies had been scurrying and jumping around frantically inside of the sack, unhappy about being stuffed in such a small space when there was so much havoc they would be wreaking right now.

“You want me to take that?” Eddie smiled up at the taller boy, pointing to the bouncing sack he was struggling with.

“Nah, that’s okay. I’ve g-“ Richie was cut off by his own small yell of surprise as the bag jostled particularly hard, sending him jerking to the left.

Eddie laughed, “You’re sure?”

“Yep! All good here, Eds,” Richie winked at the smaller boy as he gained more control of the bag.

“Okay, then. Just don’t call me that.” Eddie rolled his eyes at the nickname.

After long, Eddie got tired of Richie being jerked every which way every few minutes, so he spoke up about it. “Just let me take the stupid Dust Bunnies, Rich,” He practically demanded, holding an open hand out towards the human. Richie brushed the offer off, continuing to insist he was just fine, making Eddie huff.

“I can handle a few Dust Bunnies, Eds,” Richie retorted to Eddie’s huff.

“Uh huh, that’s why you started freaking out back in the library and are now covered in dust.” Eddie smiled at the sight of the human walking alongside him.

“Okay, so that part was kind of a flop,” Richie reasoned, getting a happily agreeing hum from Eddie, “but I’m not completely useless,”

Eddie’s head whipped back in Richie’s direction, smug smirk ripped right off his face as he saw Richie’s disappointed appearance. “Rich, you’re not useless. They’re just a few Dust Bunnies, it’s nothing to be upset over,”

“That’s just it! They’re “just a few Dust Bunnies” and I can’t even capture them without getting covered in dust and having them slip away from me, let alone even hold them while they’re stuck in a fucking sack!”

Eddie place a hand on Richie’s shoulder, “Richie, it’s fine. You did amazing considering this was your first time deal with them. I mean, look at me! I grew up having to deal with capturing and disposing of them and I still struggled with getting them, I’m completely covered in dust too.” Eddie gave Richie’s shoulder a slight squeeze, trying his best to reassure him.

Richie took a moment to look at Eddie dead in the eyes before speaking, “You really think I did okay?”

Eddie smiled reassuringly, “Of course I do! You handled them better than I did my first time,” Eddie laughed, Richie jointing in a little. “Just tell me if you need a break from carrying them. I won’t mind,”

Richie took another minute to contemplate before handing the bag towards Eddie, “Just for a little bit?”

“Just for a little bit.” Eddie agreed.

“By the way,” Richie added after a short silence when they had started walking again, “When you say “dispose”... you don’t- we’re not gonna- I mean, we’re not gonna like, y’know... kill them or anything, right?” Richie asked nervously, “Because I don’t think I can do that.” He gave a short, humorless chuckle.

“Oh, Turtle, no!” Eddie laughed too, but his his actually held some humor, “We’re just going to take them far away from here. It takes these little creatures quite awhile to travel anywhere, so we usually don’t have to deal with them a lot, as long as we dispose them far enough away.”

“Good.” Richie concluded.

“You’re not done, are you?” Eddie laughed at the anxious way Richie fidgeted beside him, a clear sign that he wanted to add more, but felt like he was being a bother to Eddie.

“I just have one more question...” Richie spoke in a bit of a guilty tone.

“Don’t feel guilty. I like talking with you,” Eddie smiled to himself at the thought of him and Richie spending time alone together and just talking for hours (or, lekrons in Derry speak).

“Really? You mean it, Eds?” Richie asked excitedly.

“Well... sometimes. I could do without all the awful names you give me,” Eddie joked.

“Oh, you love them,” Richie elbowed Eddie’s shoulder.

“Your question?” Eddie said.

“Right! Uh...” Richie paused, thinking, “I forgot.” He laughed, earning a groan from Eddie in response, but before Eddie could actually voice his complaints, Richie cut in, “Oh wait! I remember now. You guys use the phrase “Turtle” a lot, why? Is your god like a turtle or something?”

Eddie smiled, “So you want to know about Maturin.” Eddie hummed, thinking to himself, “We’d better start from the basics, then.”

~~~

“Okay- wait, so... let me see if I have this right,” Richie broke through the conversation. “So... your god is a turtle named Maturin... and his shell in your world. He’s a force of... benevolence, I guess... but he has a brother, that’s his polar opposite that brings chaos everywhere he goes. And you call the turtle Maturin... but the only name you have for his brother is “It”? And Maturin’s shell is your world... but his brother lives on this planet because of- of some sort of prophecy?”

Eddie hummed his agreement, “In short, yes.”

“So nobody knows what the prophecy is or when this mysterious prophecy is supposed to take affect? And you don’t know much more about It other than the fact that he can take shape of whatever he chooses, holds only malevolent intent, and the frequency of his voice is too low for you to hear, but I could probably hear him because I’m a human and apparently you can hear higher frequencies than us but- but we can hear lower frequencies than you?”

“Exactly! See, you’re getting it,” Eddie smiled up at Richie.

“Honestly, dude, no.” Richie laughed, “I don’t understand any of it. You have this weird animal god that’s good and his brother is bad, but you know everything about your turtle and hardly anything but a few specific things about his brother.”

“Yes,” Eddie agreed, “It seems like you understand perfectly well to me.”

“I don’t! It doesn’t make any sense. I guess that’s just how things work for you, but none of it makes any sense whatsoever,” Richie laughed again at the absurdity of the entire thing.

“Oh! Here we are. Let’s drop the Dust Bunnies off and hurry back,” Eddie said instead of arguing, though Richie could tell how much he wanted to argue with him right now.

They dumped the bunnies off and checked to make sure none were injured, then making sure none were still on them before making their way back. On the way, another question sprung upon Richie. “Hey, how’d the bunnies calm down after you took the sack earlier?”

“Oh, that. Yeah, I shoved my hand into the bag real quick and used some “magic” -as you call it- to calm them down and put them to sleep for a bit. Dust Bunnies tend to wake up and start groggy for hours at a time, so they were pretty calm the rest of the way after they woke back up.” Eddie shrugged at his explanation as if it wasn’t anything unusual.

“Dude. When are you guys going to teach me magic? I wanna do that!” Richie pouted, making Eddie laugh.

“There, there,” Eddie said, patting Richie on the back, “I’ll think about it for the future,”

“ _Really_?” Richie exclaimed, ecstatic.

“I said I’d think about it.” Eddie smiled.


	10. Boogaloo

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everyone! Sorry the title is weird again, I couldn’t think of anything lol
> 
> Any who, you can follow me on Instagram @ dumpster._.princess if you’d like :)

Richie and Eddie had almost made their way back to the library when they ran into a few familiar faces again. Henry and his goons.

“I knew I smelt a lie,” Henry stated smugly, hands on his hips as he peered down at Richie in a judgmental manner.

“I wonder how he got here?” Another boy — with hair much like Richie’s — spoke from just behind Henry, his voice smug as well.

“Did you just assume my gender?” Richie asked rhetorically. He wasn’t sure why he felt the need to make the joke, except for the fact that he could never keep his mouth shut; it seemed to move against his will, spewing out whatever his brain Hellenes to be thinking right then and there.

Richie noticed Eddie turn his head to look at him out of his peripheral and decided to do the same. When he took in Eddie’s face, it had the look of utmost confusion set upon it. His nose was scrunched up in the cute little way it does when he laughs or is disgusted by something Richie says, or when he’s confused by something odd Richie says. Like right now.

Richie shrugged it off, muttering a small, “I’ll tell you what it means later.” Eddie seemed to take the response as somewhat satisfactory for the time being and slowly turned his head to look back at the group before them, who were wearing the same expression as he was a minutes ago (except for the fact that their faces weren’t cute like his).

The boy that Richie noticed earlier looked much like Henry, but shorter and more attractive approached him, ignoring his joke of a question and asking one of his own as he shoved his face onto Richie’s, examining every inch of it, “So, how _did_ you get here?” His tone was pure suspicion.

“Why are you guy’s obsessed with him? I told you, you’ve seen him a million times, you’re all just too dumb to remember.” Eddie rolled his eyes at their antics.

Though Richie understood this was a serious situation and Eddie was trying to defend him, he was still himself. Being with himself meant dealing with wrong things that popped into his head at the wrong time, and as Eddie tried defending him, the only thing he could think about was Mariah Carey’s ‘Obsessed’. So, naturally, that’s what came out of his mouth.

It’s not like he willingly started singing, “Why you so obsessed with me? Boy, I wanna know!” Okay... so maybe it was a bit willingly. But in his defense, his mouth works faster than his brain and he probably couldn’t have prevented it anyway!

Everyone gave him the same look as before. They all stood staring straight at him, utterly confused.

“What the fuck was _that_?” Eddie looked at him incredulously, unable to contain all his laughed and letting a few giggles slip past his lips.

Richie gasped, tossing an exaggerated hand over his heart while exclaiming, “Have you never heard of Mariah Carey?”

Eddie laughed again, “No?” Richie dramatically gasped again, going to say something else but being interrupted by Eddie before he could, “Tell me about it later,” he smiled at him before turning back to the group in front of him, “What do you want, again?”

Just as Henry was about to speak — most likely to threaten them or something similar — the boy who looked like him cut him off with a loud gasp of his own, though his was genuine. He grabbed Richie’s face at the speed of light and shoved a handful of hair from the side of his head, revealing his extremely un-pointed ear.

Richie swiftly slapped the boy’s hands away from him and shook his head like a dog, affectively covering his ear again. The group before him all wore shocked looks, though Henry’s expression quickly turned furious as his gaze moved back to Eddie. “You fuckers have been hiding a human?” He shouted in the boy’s face.

“Look, Bowers. I promise there’s a perfectly good reason, and I would gladly explain to you if you would so kindly get out of my face.” Eddie glared at him. Henry did, however, give him another suspensions look before reluctantly backing away, clearly expecting an answer. Eddie took a deep breath before saying, “Thank you. Now, you see... the reason he’s here is because-“ but before Eddie could finish anything, he whipped his hand out from behind his back and threw a handful of gray-ish green dust at their faces, swiftly grabbing Richie’s hand and making a run for it.

The two boys could hear the others screaming at them as they bolted away, Richie laughing the entire time until they made it far enough away to safely slow down and catch their breaths. As they heaved over, hands grasping at their knees and lungs greedily gasping for breath, Richie continued to laugh.

“Damn, Eddie Spaghetti! You pulled a fast one on them!” Eddie laughed with him too, “That was like walking through a sketchy neighborhood. We’re in the ghetto now, boys!” He brought his hand up near his head, making the shape of a hand gun pointing to the sky while exclaiming, “I’m in the ghetto. Ratatata!”

Eddie gave him another strange look before Richie laughed again, saying: “You have so much to learn, Eds.”

~~~

“Richie, out. Now.” Eddie demanded at the human as he walked down the clubhouse stairs to see Richie was already in _his_ hammock.

Richie whined, “Oh, come _onnnnn_. Why can’t I lay in the hammock, Spaghetti?” Eddie glared at his retaliation, and the nickname.

“That’s not my name, dickwad,” yet another phrase he had learned from Richie. It seem that the longer Richie was there, the more his friends began to pick up on his phrases and manner of speaking, “And you can’t lay in the hammock because it’s _my_ hammock. I always lay in it. Those are the rules.” He crossed his arms over his chest tightly.

“Then why don’t we bend the rules a little?” Richie winked up at him, earning another angry huff from the small boy above him.

“I mean it, Rich. Get up,”

Richie smirked slyly before retorting, “Make me.”

Eddie looked shocked for a moment before determination spread across his face and he fired back was a solid, “Fine.” Before jumping in the hammock right on top of the human, squirming around and shoving Richie’s long, lanky limbs out of the way with his own, trying to get comfortable.

“Ow!” Richie manage to get out through his laughter when Eddie accidentally kicked him in the face. Now that he thought about it... it was more likely intentional than an accident. “If you wanted to get on top of me so badly, I would’ve willingly obliged y’know, Eds,” Richie’s smirk broke through again as Eddie gasped at the comment.

“Oh, you son of a-“ Eddie lunged forward to playfully punch Richie, forgetting about the current predicament already, but before he could finish his sentence, the two boys yelled, tumbling out of the hammock and crashing to the ground with a loud thud. Eddie groaned from under Richie, “Asshole.”

Richie just laughed in return, raising himself off of Eddie and staring down at him as he rubbed his head. When Eddie opened his eyes again to look up at Richie, he glared and huffed through his nose, “This is all your fault,”

“My fault?” Richie exclaimed while his mouth taped open, a smile still seeming to tug at the corners of it, “You’re the one who jumped on top of me!”

“Yeah, because you would get out of _my_ hammock!” Eddie grinned as he yelled at his friend.

It all happened so fast that Richie hasn’t even realized how or when the two of them began wrestling like young boys, but it was happening. “Y’know, when I pictured you squirming around under me, it was a completely different scenario,” Richie cackled at Eddie’s appalled expression and offended scoff.

“You’re so fucking disgusting!” Eddie giggled, face contorted from trying to look offended but failing miserably as he grinned up at Richie. He made an instant grab for Richie’s throat, as if he were to choke him, though they both know he wouldn’t do that.

Out of nowhere, Richie moaned obscenely loud, shouting, “Oh, daddy! Harder!” In a mock-pornstar voice, laughing boisterously as Eddie immediately removed his hands, looking completely flustered while punching half-heartedly at Richie’s chest.

The other losers had taken notice as to what was happening on the ground, Bev taking a particularly odd interest when Richie had made a scene of being choked. “I fucking hate you,” Eddie mumbled as he shoved at Richie’s chest harshly, trying to get him off.

“Awwww, Eds!” Richie sat up quickly, pulling Eddie with him and squeezing his arms around him exceptionally tight so that the smaller boy couldn’t move, “I love you too!”

Eddie was squirming and flailing in Richie’s arms, trying to get away from his surprisingly tight grip, “Richie.” He huffed, his voice coming out slightly breathy from being squeezed so tight, “How the fuck are you this strong? Like, seriously! You’re literally a fucking twig! On a normal day I could snap you in half over my fucking knee,”

Richie laughed again, retorting, “Oh, baby, you can snap me in half any day,” Richie said as he let go, “if you catch my drift.” He winked once again.

“Is there any possible way you could live without being disgusting and sexual all the time?”

“Nope!” Richie answered happily, popping the ‘p’ at the end.

Eddie rolled his eyes, getting up and making a show of flopping down into the hammock and sighing with comfort; every intention of ticking Richie off. Instead, his fake-relaxed face contorted into one of shock and anger when Richie jumped into the hammock as well, completely crushing Eddie again.

“Gah!” Eddie spluttered, “Richie, what the hell?”

“Deal with it, Eds,” Richie smirked as he leaned his body impossibly closer, crushing Eddie even more.

Eddie sighed in defeat, the two of them finally working it out in the end so that each had their own side. Though they were still basically on top of each other, at least now they weren’t crushing one another. Their legs tangled together in an odd way, one of Eddie’s landing all the way up next to Richie’s head. They were content.

As everything had finally settled down and the group were all immersed in books (still trying to find a way to get the portal reopened), Eddie took it upon himself to bring some of the chaos back by whacking his foot roughly against the side of Richie’s head without so much as looking at him. When Richie peered over the top of his book to glare at the other boy, he was still hyper focused on his book — or so it seemed — so he brushed it off, chalking it up to a simple foot twitch or something.

It wasn’t even two minutes later when Eddie had done it again, trying to contain his giggling as he noticed Richie look over at him from his peripheral. He left it alone for a bit longer then, waiting until about ten more minutes had passed to thwack his foot against Richie’s head again. This time, Richie voiced his displeasure. “Dude, what?” He exclaimed, making Eddie unable to contain his laughter this time. “Seriously?”

Eddie nodded through the giggles, giving the human a sly look as he did it again, this time knocking his glasses askew. He laughed harder as the glasses slowly slid from him nose and fell into his lap. If someone told Richie that laughter was contagious, he would have believed it right now, because he couldn’t stop laughing solely because Eddie was laughing; and laughing _hard_ , at that.

Soon, they had fallen back into their easy bickering, their minds straying far from the reading that they were supposed to be doing and choosing to just be for awhile.

~~~

That night, the group decided to send Richie off to Eddie’s house with him for the night, seeing as they could seemingly never tire of each other and the others were a bit over it after a full day of their bickering back and forth. Though, Eddie complained, Richie ended up being stuck with him for the night.

Seeing as Richie had yet to stay at Eddie’s house, he decided to explore when they reached their destination. Soon enough, he had made his way around the house and was continuing to snoop around when he found a spacious room filled with all sorts of shelves and table-top surfaces that had been covered in many strange artifacts. Unsure of what they were, Richie made his way into the room and took in as much as he could at once.

Curious, he looked all around the room until his eyes caught on a particular artifact that lay on top of a cluttered desk. He made his way over to the odd piece and leaned in close to look at it.

It loose like a gyroscope with strange signs engraved in it that slowly faded in between all the colors of the rainbow. In the middle of the gyroscope-looking thing, hovered a sphere of light, similar to the ones that were everywhere, except for it too slowly shifted its way through the rainbow and back again to the start.

Just as he picked the object up to inspect it more formally, Eddie popped his head into the room, quickly rushing in fully and swiping the object from Richie’s hands, shouting a quick, “No, don’t touch that!” He gently placed the gyroscope back on the desk right where it was before. Just as Richie was about to ask why, Eddie spoke up again, “In fact, don’t touch anything in here. How about we just leave this room and go t-“

“Are you okay, Eds?” Richie blurted before Eddie got the chance to finish. “What is this place?”

“It was my father’s study before he and my mom left for earth. I don’t really... spend a lot of time in here...” he stated the last part a bit sadly. There was a heavy silence between them, “Can we leave now?” Richie nodded and they spend the rest of their night far away from Frank Kaspbrak’s study.


	11. Is This the Part Where I Start Running, Or is This Okay? The Complete Guide to Being Unable to Identify Mortal Dangers & More!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I'm sure you can get there on your own," They said, "it'll be fine!" They said.
> 
> It wasn't. It really, really wasn't.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HI! So... I’m back! I’m not dead... yet. I’m so sorry that I completely just disappeared off the face of the earth for a week without word. Last week was super busy and chaotic for me, so I apologize!
> 
> It feels amazing to be back and I hope I don’t have to skip another posting week for quite some time. I’m extremely sorry, again!
> 
> As always, you can follow me on Instagram @ dumpster._.princess :)
> 
> \+ I’m considering making a Tumblr acc 👀

" _I'm sure you can get there on your own,_ " They said, " _it'll be fine_!" They said.

It wasn't. It really, _really_ wasn't.

~~~

Let's go back to about three hours ago, when this whole mishap began...

~~~

Richie had just left Bev's house to head to the library... on his own, of course.

The others still had plenty of books left to get through and decided they weren't gonna stop to go with him to get new books this time. This is where he had to cross the line and go out on his own, in a dangerous, otherworldly dimension that he still only knew about 18% of.

He had been getting nearer and nearer to the library when he stopped in his tracks and tried his best to sneakily back away into the brush on the side as Bowers and his gang emerged from the deep tangle of trees ahead.

Thankfully, he seemed to make a clean getaway as he submerged himself in the heaps of plant without being noticed. Not so thankfully, he seemed to back up just this side of too far, and found himself tumbling down, down, down.

When he finally stilled against the ground with a loud ' _oof_!', he sat back up and realized he had fallen down into a small stream that ran through a lover level of ground. The landing he had fallen from was steep, a perfect 90 degree angle and about twice as tall as himself.

After many failed attempts to make his way back up and out, he had chosen to try and find a way around the higher landing to get back up.

Upon trying to go around the small cliff, he found himself somehow slowly growing farther away from it and losing himself further into the forest. It wasn't until he saw nothing he recognized that he put two and two together, realizing he was lost.

Just as this revelation came to him, he heard what sounded like someone whispering whip right by his head. Turning his head around as fast as possible to see what had made the noise, he noticed that there were now a bounty of fairy-like creatures fluttering near him.

They gave off a bright blue aura and were slightly translucent. He had found them in a book a few weeks ago and quickly identified them as Wisps.

They were friendly creatures, known to show lost travelers their way back home, as long as they treated them with respect and would give favors to them in their kind's need.

Upon asking them for help, they quickly guided a path for him to get back to his friends.

Things had been going fantastic for the human for about twenty minutes, that was until the Wisps had suddenly become frightened of something. It didn't take long for them to eventually just apologize to Richie and scatter away without another word.

Now worried and confused, Richie looked all around, searching for whatever had frightened the Wisps away. He hadn't found anything up until he turned back to face forward again and an upside down person swung their way into his line of vision.

Terrified beyond comprehension, Richie gasped, letting out a loud _'GAH_!' as he plopped down against the ground.

Now looking up at the person, he saw that they were hanging from a low branch of a tree, their legs hooked around the wood to keep them there. It was a blond boy, looking about to be the same age as Richie, though there was something off about them.

They had black, rabbit-like ears sprouting from their head and a long, thin tail waving around. The irises of their eyes a bright yellow unlike any he had seen before.

The boy smiled down at Richie, uttering a giddy sounding:

"Hello..."

The smile it gave was slightly unnerving, but the human responded nonetheless, "Uh, hello," he said with very little confidence.

The two of them stared at each other for an uncomfortably long amount of time before Richie decided to speak up again, "I don't mean to sound rude or anything, but... _what are you?"_

"I," the boy began while flipping himself back up to the branch to kneel on top of it, "can be whatever you desire." He held a hand to his chest as he spoke.

"I can become a female, if you would prefer?" The boy spoke as he slowly transitioned to a tall girl with long black hair, though the ears and tail never went away. Richie gaped at the creature, continuing to watch it as it talked, "I can be any animal you want..." It continued as it shifted between a cat, dog, and goat, "Or if you would much prefer..." it said in a suggestive tone as it slowly formed itself into the one and only Eddie.

The resemblance was uncanny, despite the ears, tail, and eyes. Richie stared at the creature tentatively as it jumped down from the branch, landing directly in front of him. Its posture was perfect and it held its hands behind its back, looking as though it was a formal occasion.

When Richie had finally found his voice, he was able to ask — with a slight bit of fear, I might add —, "How... are you doing that..? What are you? _Who_ are you?"

"It's simple," The creature explained, "I'm a Phooka..." The Phooka's voice was low and eerie, similar to the voice of the antagonist in a horror movie. "I go by Vixen... but since we're friends... you can call me Vix..." The Phooka grinned at Richie and-

Good lord- nothing in any horror movie could compare to the sight in front of him right now. "Well, I wouldn't necessarily call us friends... we've only just met," Richie reasoned politely, trying not to sound unkind; he wasn't sure what this thing was capable of if he offended it.

"Of course we have," the creature grinned wider, "I've been watching over you since you got here..."

Stunned and utterly terrified by this new revelation, Richie found himself only able to stutter out a small, "Uh-" as a response.

"I believed that taking form of the person you are most fond of would have put you at ease..." the Phooka tilted its head as it stared at the taller boy, "Was I incorrect?"

"N-no! Of course not, I just..." Richie took a moment to study the face of the creature. It was so very familiar... so uncanny to the boy he was so fond of... but this wasn't _his_ Eddie. This was Vixen. Just a Phooka — whatever the hell that was. Just a creature that looked and sounded like Eddie. But the eyes were most certainly not his. Eddie's eyes were big, soft brown eyes; the perfect shade of brown, with golden flecks sparkling around perfect irises. The ears and tail were a dead giveaway. But, the more Richie looked at Vixen, the more he noticed that he was missing many particular details that were special to Eddie.

Eddie's nose was more button-y shaped, his eyes were bigger, yet. His hair had small curls at the ends, his eyelashes were longer, eyebrows were thicker, freckles _much_ darker. By the time Richie had finished picking out all the tiny details, comparing the two, he realized that they looked almost nothing alike when up close. If the time is taken to actually look for a moment, it's obvious that this isn't Eddie.

"I guess I would prefer if you were just you," Richie settled upon, now feeling slightly offended that he thought this "botched" version of the boy he had been crushing on for months was even close to the real thing.

"That can be arranged..." Vixen answered as the odd Eddie slowly formed into a black, rabbit like creature. It was much taller than any rabbit he had ever seen, standing on two legs like a person, reaching to about five and a half feet or more. "Is this what you prefer?"

Richie took a moment to thoroughly take in the sight before him, evaluating his feelings about the situation before responding with a simple, "Yes."

"Well, then... I shall stay in my natural form..." Vixen agreed.

"Right then," Richie exclaimed, clapping his hands together. The entire situation was just becoming too weird and he had been trying to force himself to become comfortable with Vixen; the task proved to be overly difficult, "Do you, by any chance, know how I can get back to civilization?"

"Pardon..?" Vix asked in response.

"Y'know, back to the others? I kinda got separated from my friends and ended up losing the path. Now I'm stuck without any familiar surroundings. I think I strayed _pretty_ far from any paths..."

"Of course... allow me to show you the way?" Vix offered the lost human, to which he agreed.

~~~

It had been about forty minutes of walking with Vixen by now and Richie could swear that they had come across nothing familiar. Of course, forests always look the same at every which turn, but this was... weird.

He wasn't sure what it was about Vixen... they seemed like a fine character, but... following them just felt... wrong.

It was only then, that Richie was lost in these thoughts, that he realized he didn't know what to refer to the creature as. It would be much easier to know their pronouns, and most certainly more polite to use the proper ones for them.

"Hey, Vix?" Richie had now asked, breaking the silence surrounding the two.

"Yes..?"

"Could you tell me what your pronouns are? I just don't want to assume or, y'know, offend you by any means." Richie gesticulated with his hands as he spoke.

Vixen looked at the boy quizzically before requesting, "Please expand on what these "pronouns" are..."

"Oh! Well, uh... where I come from, people use pronouns based on what they identify as. He/him, she/her, they/them, she/they, he/they... that kind of stuff." Richie explained as best as he could.

"Hmm... well then.. I suppose you could identify me as anything you would like, if that helps..." Vix answered simply.

"I-" Richie paused before coming to a conclusion, "Non-binary it is, then. Neither masculine, nor feminine."

It seemed as though Vixen took a moment to consider what Richie was saying before nodding their head, "Highly agreeable..."

~~~

Another twenty minutes before:

"Okay!" Richie stopped in his tracks, leading Vix to stop as well, "It's been an hour. Do _you_ even know where we're going?"

"Of course... I'm taking you back to your friends, as promised..." Vix gave a sly smile.

Thundering in the late-day quiet came a noise from straight behind the human, making him jump out of his skin and whip around to identify the maker of the noise.

As his eyes dragged themselves up, up, up, he found that the sound came from- the trees?

He watched carefully, as one of the trees slowly brought its top closer to the ground, part of the trunk bending as if it were crouching down, but upon closer inspection, that was exactly what the tree had been doing.

As it came closer and closer, he realized that it very closely resembled a person. It had a face carved of wood, its trunk branched off into limbs (pun intended), and the leaves looked similar to an afro-esque style of hair.

As the tree reached eye-line view with the human, it smiled at him as it spoke, "Hello, little one,"

Richie was pleasantly surprised by the kindness of the tree, and was happy to greet it also, "Hi." He waved.

"You appear lost, are you okay?" It leaned into a more comfortable position on hands and knees, trying its hardest to make close eye contact with whom it was speaking to.

"Oh, yes, we're okay. Vixen here was just showing me the way back to my friends," Richie smiled up at the tree being, shrugging off the question asked.

"Oh dearie me..." the tree sighed, "Little one, the other elves are all the way on the other side of the forest." Richie, confused by the news, turned to look back at Vixen, who was just smirking devilishly at him, "Never trust a Phooka, especially not for guidance. They are creatures of mischief and chaos, my child. Come with me, I can take you back home,"

Richie gave the tree a suspicious look, "How do I know that you're going to take me back to my friends..? You could stray me even further from where I want to go..."

"If you would prefer, you can make your way back yourself, of course. I will lead you along the correct path, though it may take quite some time to reach your desired destination." The tree spoke.

After weighing the option, Richie asked, "How long..?"

“I would say no less than three days.” Richie was speechless. _Three days?!_ It had taken him less than _one_ to get to where he was now! How did that make any sense?! “It would be much faster to just let me take you home, youngling. We can be there within the mekron.”

Once again, weighing his options, he hitched a ride with the tree, trusting that it would get him where he needed to go.

Along the short way, he learned that the tree was actually a ‘she’ and her name was Holly. He was strangely sad to see her go when they reached the familiar path near the clubhouse and she brought him back down to the ground.

She gave him a few short words of advice, promising to see him again soon, and then she left with a smile.

Richie quickly rushed to the clearing above the clubhouse, making his way inside, and sighing with relief when his friends all turned to look at him.

After getting over his momentary joy of being back where he belonged, he glared at all of them before exclaiming, “I am never letting you guys make me go somewhere by myself again!” He crossed his arms over his chest tightly, huffing.

“What? Why? What the hell happened and why did you take so fucking long?” Eddie asked, slight worry in his voice.

“Where, oh where do I begin?” Richie asked sarcastically.

_To be continued..._


	12. A Near Death Experience <3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I was just trying to help! How could I have known that any of this would have happened?” Richie defended.
> 
> “You couldn’t have, but that’s why we don’t go messing around with objects that hold that much power!” 
> 
> “I wasn’t messing around! I was tr-“ Richie began explaining before being cut off.
> 
> “You could have fucking died, Richie! Do you know what that means?” Eddie fired back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, everyone! 
> 
> Once again, I apologize for another chapter being uploaded late. I pumped this out as fast as I could. The holidays are an insane time for me and I’ve been trying my hardest to write while pumping out all the required work for the last three weeks before I get winter break. Again, I’m really sorry for being late once again but the next few weeks should have uploads on time! Thank you all for being patient with me. :)
> 
> (Follow me on Instagram if you want @ dumpster._.princess !!)

Eddie gasped when he saw movement from the bed in front of him, stilling himself for a moments as if the house around him would come crashing down if he moved even the tiniest bit. When his previous thoughts were confirmed, he began shouting for his friends and calling out to them, “Guys! I think he’s waking up!”

At the speed of light, all the others rushed into the room and crowded around the bed Eddie was sitting next to. The deafening silence in the room would have been eerie on any normal basis — it was tense, full of nerves gone haywire and levels of stress so high that you could practically smell it —, but nobody cared, their minds all preoccupied with hundreds of thoughts swimming around at the same time.

It had probably lasted about only a minute, but with each second that had passed, it felt like the end was growing light years away. The stirring had come to a close in favor of two confused blue eyes fluttering open and blinking a few times, allowing themselves to adjust to the low light in the room. Everyone felt like the largest weight had been lifted off their shoulders, a blanket of comfort replacing it.

The eyes took a moment to calmly scan the faces around the room in curiosity before the person they belonged to spoke up, “What’s... going on..?” Richie asked quietly, his voice raspy and hoarse from resting for so long. “You guys aren’t doing that thing you did when I first got here again, are you?” Seeing all their faces pull into a curious sort of expression, he pressed on, “Y’know... the one where you guys would watch me sleep?”

“Technically yes?” Bill said as more of a question than an answer. “You were asleep for quite awhile...”

Then, out of nowhere, Georgie climbed his way onto the bed and jumped on top of the human, holding his glasses. “Can we play now that you’re awake?” The small boy grinned down at Richie as he shoved the glasses onto his face.

A slight bit of terror rung throughout Richie’s body when the glasses were placed on his face and his vision turned blurry. It was only then that he noticed he had been seeing perfectly fine without his glasses just moments prior. He cautiously removed the frames from his face, his friends coming back into clear view. He began swiftly switching between pulling the glasses up to his eyes and pulling them back down again.

“Uh... Rich? Are you,” Mike hesitated, “Okay..?”

“It doesn’t make any sense!” Richie fathomed.

“What doesn’t make any sense? You’re being a lot weirder than normal, Richie,” Bev replied.

“He’s freaking out because he’s basically blind without his glasses, but now he can see perfectly fine without them.” Eddie shrugged when everyone looked down at him with jaws dropped. “What?”

“How did you know that?” Richie asked. It was almost as if Eddie had been reading his mind and peering into all of his thoughts.

“Wasn’t it obvious?” Eddie asked carefully, beginning to become suspicious of himself as well when all the others has shook their heads. “I don’t know how I knew, I just sort of did,” Eddie answered the previous question.

“Wait-“ Ben spoke now, “You said you _don’t_ need your glasses to see now?”

“No!” Richie exclaimed, “And I’m freaking out about it because I’ve needed glasses since I was little. How does something like that just go away?”

“Could it have something to do with the Kirosect..?” Ben asked the others,but turning specifically towards Mike.

At that word, Richie’s eyes widened, his irises flashing from the icey blue color they always were, to a deep purple pooling around large pupils in the matter of less than a second.

“Woah-“ Georgie exclaimed at the sudden change in eye color, jumping back from the human slightly. The small boy now drawing the attention back to Richie, the others quickly witnessed the same thing.

“What is it? What happened now?” Richie asked, sounding as if he were on the verge of having a panic attack. Today was not a good day for this... any day ever was never a good day for this. The others exchanged looks of concern, hesitant to tell Richie what was happening and make him feel even worse. “Guys! What’s going on? Why are you all looking around like that?”

Eddie gently slipped his hand into Richie’s, “If we show you, you have to promise not to freak out, okay?” Richie searched Eddie’s eyes, trying his hardest to find something that would tell him this was all some sick prank or something, but all he found was honest concern. Gulping somewhat audibly, Richie slowly nodded his head and Eddie requested for Stan to go get a mirror for him. Stan obeyed, making his way swiftly across the room and back to his friends, mirror in hand, before sending it off to Beverly.

The girl took the mirror, slowly preparing herself for Richie’s reaction when she turned the large piece of metal and glass around. To say that Richie began freaking out about what he was seeing would be the biggest understatement of the year. His friends tried their best to calm him down, only finally getting it to work after ten minutes of fighting with his negativity and loud mouth.

Richie groaned, covering his face with his hands, accepting defeat and trying to make sense of everything rushing through his head at the moment. Eddie placed a comforting hand on his shoulder, “We’ll figure it out, Rich. I promise.”

“Well, it obviously has something to do with the Kirosect, that much is clear,” Mike stated, “We just have to figure out what it did exactly, and how.”

“How do we do that?” Bill asked.

“Have him stand up,” Stan ordered, “We need to know that he can still stand and walk before we do anything else,”

Mike made his way from the foot of the bed to Richie’s side to help him up. As soon as Richie began to sit up and start inching toward the bedside to stand, he groaned, pained and long. “God-“ he groaned. When questioned with what happened, his only response was, “everything fucking hurts...” he continued to make his way to the edge of the bed, Mike’s hand leaning against his back to help support him, “It feels like all my muscles were dug into and ripped apart inside of my body...”

The group looked around at each other with fear in their eyes, only Ben asking what they were all thinking, “Could that type of power actually have done that to him..?”

“Of course not,” Stan answered, “It’s a figure of speech. If his muscles were actually ripped apart, he most likely wouldn’t be able to move them at all. They’re just in excruciating pain from everything else he went through, and then not moving at all for a week.”

“I was asleep for a whole _week_?” Richie exclaimed as he finally got to his feet, stumbling around a bit and just barely falling to the ground, with the help of Mike.

“Your body needed to rest and recharge after everything that happened, it’s not a surprise you were asleep for so long. It actually comes as more of a surprise that you weren’t asleep longer.” Stan explained simply. He smoothly made his way across the room and tucked himself near the furthest corner from Richie, “Now, try walking over here,” Richie and Mike glanced nervously at each other, leading to him saying, “Mike can help you if you need it.”

Slowly, Richie made his way across the room. There were a few times where his leg muscles gave out on him, making the others around him gasp and flinch, ready to make a move to catch their friend, but Mike saved the day each and every time. Stan had him walking back and forth across the room until he felt steady enough to make the journey in his own. In the end, he was able to make his way across the room a few times without much trouble. This must have satisfied Stan because he excused the human to go lay back down and rest. Tomorrow, they would try again and then work on stairs.

As Richie sat back down on the bed, he sighed in relief, feeling his muscles get the relaxation they craved. He looked around at all of his friend’s now happy and relieved faces. It looked like none of them had slept for awhile, drags purple bags hanging under their eyes, low posture, mussed hair and stress lines.

“You guys should go home and get some sleep, you all look like you haven’t slept in years,” Richie suggested softly. He could tell they were all thinking about curling up in bed and drifting off as soon as he mentioned it because their eyes all turned glassy and unfocused looking.

“Will you be okay if we do?” Bev asked.

“Of course. I might nod off again, myself. I’m still exhausted,” Richie smiled back, “Just get some rest. You all clearly need it. Agreeing, his friends all hugged him one by one before filing out of the room and making their ways home. All except for Eddie, that is. When everyone was gone, he turned to Eddie, saying, “You should get some rest too, Eds. I’ll be okay.”

“I’m not tired,” he stated simply, though that was clearly a lie. The adding, “And don’t call me that.”

Richie laughed before scooting over, making a large space next to him on the bed. Eddie gave him a curious look as Richie pat the side of the bed he wasn’t on. “Come lay down,”

Eddie shook his head, “No, I’m okay, Rich.”

“Don’t make me drag you onto this bed,” Richie hissed teasingly, “You know I will and I’m in excruciating pain right now.”

“Oh come on...” Eddie rolled his eyes, “I think we both know that you wouldn’t even be able to if you tried with the condition you’re in.”

Richie smirked, “Do you really wanna test that theory?”

“Richie, seriously. Don’t.” Eddie replied with a small lilt of fear in his voice, “We don’t need you tearing something trying to get me to lay down,”

“Then lay down,” Richie demanded, his smile growing bigger when Eddie had finally given up and decided to lay down next to him.

“There. Happy?” He asked in a huffy tone, though Richie know he was joking when he said it.

“Extremely.” Richie smiled, causing Eddie to smile as well, though he rolled his eyes first.

The room turned quiet once again as they stared into one another’s eyes. It wasn’t uncomfortable, but they could tell the other was thinking. “Hey, uh-“ Richie finally broke the silence, “On a more serious note... what do you think is happening to me..?” He asked nervously. Nothing was going to be the same after using the Kirosect, he could just feel it.

Eddie took a moment to search his face before answering with, “In all honesty, I’m not sure. We’ll figure it out, hopefully, but for now, I’m not sure what’s going on.” Richie nodded in understanding, though still nervous. Another silence dragged on before Eddie spoke his thoughts once again, “This wouldn’t have been a problem if you would have just never used that fucking Kirosect... or at least not in the way you did,” His tone was now growing slightly angry.

“I was just trying to help! How could I have known that any of this would have happened?” Richie defended.

“You couldn’t have, but that’s why we don’t go messing around with objects that hold that much power!”

“I wasn’t messing around! I was tr-“ Richie began explaining before being cut off.

“You could have fucking _died_ , Richie! Do you know what that means?” Eddie fired back.

“But I didn’t,” Richie’s response was now in a softer tone. “Isn’t that what’s important now?”

“Yeah...” Eddie’s tone was now softer too, “But now you have no way to get home that we know of and-“

“Hey,” Richie interrupted, grabbing Eddie’s hand, “We’ll figure it out, okay? I believe in us.”

Eddie nodded softly, staring down at their hands, “Why did you steal the Kirosect and do all that in the first place?”

“Do you have time for a slightly long story?” Richie smiled.

“Always.”

_To be continued..._


	13. A Story for the Ages

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HELLOOOOOO!!! It has been almost TWO MONTHS since I uploaded anything! Gosh, I can’t believe it’s been that long. I went on a little bit of a hiatus out of the blue and it ended up stretching on longer than I intended. I’m really sorry for not having anything out sooner, I’ve just had quite a bit of life stuff going on currently, but it seems to have slowed down (knock on wood). I’m kicking things back into gear and working hard to start writing on a regular basis again to pump out a chapter every week as usual! If you’ve stuck around this long, thank you so much. Once again, I’m extremely sorry and I love you all! <3
> 
> As always, you can find me on Instagram @ dumpster._.princess
> 
> I also have made my way over to tumblr now! @ dumpster-princess
> 
> If you guys would like to follow me there, that would be much appreciated! Love ya <3

"Do... you remember a couple weeks back? When I wasn't feeling too great, so we went to the quarry and talked it out?" Richie asked, starting slowly.

Eddie nodded up at him, looking into his eyes with his own large doe ones. His expression told Richie that he was hanging on to every last word, like he didn't wanna miss a single detail.

Richie smiled fondly down at him, getting lost for a moment before Eddie's expression shifted to one of concern, "Richie?" Eddie asked, shaking him from his trance.

"Yeah?"

Eddie giggled softly, "Where'd you go? Are you okay?"

"Uh- nowhere. Nowhere, I'm fine." Richie smiled back, though his smile was more embarrassed than anything.

"Are you sure you're feeling fine?" Eddie raised his hand to Richie's forehead, gently pushing his fingertips under the mess of curls and pressing the backs of his fingers to his skin, continuing to move his hand down to his cheek. "Maybe you need some more sleep?"

"No, no, I'm fine." Richie reached up and gently held Eddie's hand, still on his cheek. As Eddie moved to say something, Richie cut him off before he could say a word, "I promise, okay?"

Eddie took a second to think it over before responding with, "Okay. Continue the story," he smiled.

~~~

_Eddie had just left to head back to their friends for the night, making Richie promise he would be okay by himself at the quarry and come back safe._

_It had been no longer than an hour since Eddie left by now, and there was this strange vibration under Richie as he sat on the cliff._

_The vibrations grew stronger and stronger, until he was able to see what was the cause of it. As the being comes closer and closer, Richie's eyes widen. Not sure what to do, he stays completely still, remembering what Jurassic Park had taught him as a child._

_The creature makes its way down to a sitting position, placing itself in the waters of the quarry, seemingly having not noticed Richie._

_Curious, Richie looked over the edge of the cliff side and watched to see what the creature would do next. He watched and waited, waited and watched, yet nothing happened._

_~~~_

_Richie stayed at the quarry far past a time he expected to be there originally, but he had gotten caught up in waiting for the creature._

_He wasn't sure how long it had been by this point, not even thinking about it; that was, until, the creature sighed, carefully stood up, and was off swiftly, moving one giant foot at a time._

_As it was no longer in sight, and there were no more vibrations under the human, he finally realized that he had lost track of time, running back to Bill's place where the other's were._

_After assuring a worrying Eddie that he was completely fine when he got back, he headed to bed._

_~~~_

_The next day, Richie took to running around the library looking for one book in particular._

_He remembers when he first found the book. It stuck out from the others by far and he had been curious when he first found it._

He had just spotted the book and asked Mike what it was. Together, they pulled it down from the shelf and read it over.

"Ah, that makes sense," Mike smiled to himself as he looked over the cover.

"What does it say?" Richie asked, still unable to fully read their language, he was still learning.

"It says, 'Tel' Giant Book en' Giants.' Which, basically translates to 'The Giant Book of Giants.'" Mike grinned at him, "Wanna know about giants? This is the book to come to," he stated as he patted the front cover.

"I'll remember that," Richie smiled back.

_And he did. He remembered. That's how he knew exactly what he was searching for._

_Finally, after about an hour, he had found his book and hauled it out of the many moving shelves. He pulled the cover off the pages, causing dust to fly all around him. Coughing and waving his hand to clear the dust, he began flipping pages, dragging his hand across them to clear the thick layers of grime and find the secrets hidden underneath._

_The first run through, he missed what he was looking for, having yo go through again and search for pages he had missed before. Then, as he flipped a page he had accidentally skipped near the middle of the book, he saw it. Something drawn on the page that looked exactly like what he saw last night._

_He inspected the page curiously, before noticing the large scrawl at the top that wrote, 'Abbercrookie'. He looked back to the picture, then, deciding it was a fitting name._

_The creature was tall with long, hefty limbs, a tall head, and glowing eyes; the entire being coated in long, thick fur, hiding everything but the facial features and ears._

_He deciphered what he could of the text, though it wasn't much. He decides to ask Ben and Mike about what they know of giants and their history._

_After his questions being answered with what they could provide — which was only as much information as provided in the book 'A History of Giants' — he decided it was enough for him, though it wasn't much._

_Apparently, the book with all the information didn't have a whole lot inside, considering nobody had seen a giant in decades, if not centuries._

_~~~_

_For the next week, Richie decides to come back to the quarry every night and wait for the giant to show._

_The first night, he was about to consider going back to Bev's place, that was until the Abbercrookie suddenly appeared. This continued every night that week, the same routine over and over._

_Richie would sit and wait, contemplate to himself. After so long, the giant would show up to sit in the waters of the quarry below, as if waiting for something, someone. Then, with a disappointed sigh hours into the endeavor, it would stand back up and walk away, as would Richie._

_One night, Richie decided to take a leap of faith, going with his gut and taking a chance. He shouts down to the creature, catching its attention, but not quite making a difference._

_The giant seemed to take notice, but couldn't quite hear him, let alone decipher what he was saying. After struggling for a few minutes, Richie decided to take the biggest risk of all, for better or for worse._

_He took a deep breath, backed up a little ways before bolting forward at full speed and jumping from the edge of the cliff. He landed roughly against the creature, clinging as tightly as possible to the long, silk fur._

_When he finally felt like he wasn't about to die, he slowly but surely inched his way down to its ear, resting himself on the shell of it and speaking once again._

_"Hello!" Richie shouted once again, just to make himself clear._

_"Oh! Hello." The Abbercrookie responded kindly._

_"I've noticed you spend a lot of time here a the quarry lately," Richie urged, "Are you okay?"_

_"Oh, yes, I'm quite alright," the giant answered._

_"Are you... waiting for something?”_

_“Oh, well yes. Though, I don’t know if he’ll come.” The Abbercrookie sighed sadly._

_Richie’s curiosity was beyond piqued at this point, “Why do you say that?”_

_Another sigh, “I haven’t seen him in ages. I suppose he left with all the others; haven’t seen any of them in ages either.”_

_“Others? So you mean to say that there’s more of you?”_

_“Oh, of course. At least, there was. They are no more, though. Left to go traveling the cosmos,” The creature responded._

_Richie took a moment of silence to think it over, “Why’d they all leave?” He finally settled on asking._

_“You see, it all started with the elvish. Ahnok was his name. He and I used to meet up right here centuries ago, when the world was asleep; nothing to protect or look after for the moment. We were in love...” The last but was spoken sadly, “But then, the elvish found out about us. They didn’t want us around any longer, though we were only trying to protect them. There were attacks, battles. None of us took participation in them, but they believed we were dangerous to them. In the end, all the others gave up, taking a Kirosect and traveling the universe to find a new home.”_

_Richie sat, listening patiently, trying to soak in every detail given to him._

_“I refused to leave. I am a warrior, built for fighting, built for protecting and serving those who cannot do it alone. Of course, Ahnok was not very pleased with my choice. Yet, he promised to stay if I stayed. I believed him, truly, but I suppose love can only live with strain, until it finally snaps.”_

_Processing the information, Richie settled on responding with, “I’m sorry that happened. Maybe it wasn’t his choice? It sounds like he truly did care for you. You don’t actually believe he would just abandon you, do you?” Richie pressed, trying to help._

_“Love is...” The Abbercrookie gave a sigh, as if contemplating its next words, “A difficult thing to understand. Love can be big, and it can be small. It can be sweet, until it turns sour and rotten. It can be a weapon, it can hurt. But it can also heal the biggest wounds. Love can be simple, or love can be profound. It can bring joy like no other, pain like nothing you’ve ever endured. It can be thin, fragile, or it can be strong and bright. It can be loose and easy going, or pulled taut and strained. Yet, in all my years, I have realized that there is one thing about love that has always stayed the same.”_

_“What’s that?” The human questioned._

_“Love — for good, or for bad — is the strongest entity of any plane of existence. It is the reason why so many search for it, long for it. It is the closest thing to power and magic that a non-magical being will ever have, and it is by far the strongest magic that any powerful being has ever experienced. Love can grow into something beautiful and help things grow with it, but if taken the wrong way, it has the power to rip a universe apart from its core.”_

_“That’s very... profound,” Richie struggled to find a word that fit how he was feeling in that moment._

_The giant gave a small chuckle, “Well, thank you, my little friend.” It smiled, “Say... if you don’t mind me asking... who are you? What species are you? What is your name?”_

_“Oh! My name is Richie, Richie Tozier.” He smiled, “I’m a human,”_

_The creature gasped, “A human?”_

_“Yeah...” Richie scratched the back of his neck, “I’m not really supposed to be here, I kinda got stuck when I decided to go out adventuring one day, and now I can’t get back home. At least, my friends and I haven’t found any way to.”_

_“Oh, I believe it. Can I see you?”_

_Of course, the human had responded with a polite yes, before a large hand was gently lifted toward the giant’s ear and he hopped on, holding on tight as the wind whipped in his hair, being brought around to face the Abbercrookie head on._

_It smiled down at Richie, saying, “In all my years, I have seen many thing, but never once have I had the pleasure of meeting a human.”_

_Richie gave a small grin and wave as he responded. “Yeah... seems like I’m a bit of a rare breed around here,” he chuckled a bit awkwardly._

_“It’s utterly fantastic! Fascinating,” The Abbercrookie continued to smile. “I do suppose it is getting a bit late, though. I should be off soon. Do you think you would be willing to come here again, same time tomorrow?” It asked hopefully._

_“Of course! It would be my pleasure,” Richie grinned back._

_“Oh, how exciting! It’s been quite some time since I’ve had the opportunity to spend time chatting with someone.”_

_After long, Richie and the giant parted their ways and went off for the night._

_Richie slept well, having answers to questions that had been burning in his head for a week, and knowing the fact that he had something to look forward to for then next night, and hopefully, quite a few future nights to come._

**To be continued...**


End file.
